Pixie: The Beginning
by Hally2
Summary: I always thought that Tinkerbell was a made up story. I guess that there are a lot of things I thought that was not real that turned out to be more than real. My name is Kate, I'm eleven years old and this is my story. (Please review it helps me keep writing.)
1. Kidnapped

It was Monday night I was going over to my neighbors' house to bring in and feed their miniature horses. It was a warm early spring day the sun was out and I was enjoying the freedom of being set free in the warm weather. I was about half way there when a black van came up beside me and stopped next to me. One second I was alone and the next two guys were jumping out of the van, one getting in front of me while the other went to my back, I did not have time to scream or do anything. Before I knew what was happening the guy behind me had my arms pinned to my sides with one arm while covering my mouth and nose with a cloth in his other hand. I tried to fight, pushing my arms away from my body as hard as I could. When that did not work I then turned to kicking, lifting one foot at a time and trying to kick him in the leg or were the sun does not shine. Nothing worked, time started to slow down I could not see right. I did not feel right either, my legs then quit working altogether and I would have fallen if the guy in front of me had not coughed me in time. My eyes began to close even though I tried to keep them open. I was then picked up by one of them; I felt the sway of him walking wandering where he was taking me. I heard someone say something but could not really make out what they had said; I felt the rumble of the person carrying me replying. My mind was going dead ever foot step taken I forgot why I should not be falling asleep, the sun felt good and the man that was holding me became my dad holding me when I was little and was too tired to keep walking when we had gone hiking one time. I felt him put me in bed before he walked off, something felt off to me my dad always stayed with me until I was asleep.

I opened my eyes for one last look to make sure that I was home, what I found brought me awake almost instantly. Instead of my windows and wall inside of my bedroom, I saw the inside of a van with the door still open and a man about to close it. I did not know the man and I had no intention of finding out who he was, I jumped up and out of the van or tried to my legs would not work the way I wanted them to. Instead of jumping out of the van I fell out, I tried hard to get up and away but it was no use. I was drugged, they had drugged me with the cloth over my face I thought as I felt the guy at the van door grab my arm and pick me up roughly. He then shoved me into the van, not being careful at all. I felt the skin on my lower legs being scraped off as he forced me into the van, I gasped at the pain but was stopped from crying out when I was shoved forward. I rolled on the floor of the van and hit the opposite door knocking all of the air from my lungs. I hear and felt the slam of the van door's being shut the shudder of the van running through me. I struggled to get air into my burning lungs, and felt a warm trickle going down my lower legs. The van then took off, the movement so sudden that it sent me rolling. I hit the trunk door with my left hand trying to stop myself from hitting the wall with too much force. I knew it was a mistake a second too late, my hand hit the wall a half second before my body did. I heard the snap of the bone, I waited for what felt like an hour for the pain to come and it did but not in the way I thought it would.

It felt like someone had hit me in the shoulder with a small stone, I do not know why I did not cry out or maybe I did all I knew was that I did not want to move. I knew from experience that if I moved I would come out of the shock and my hand would come alive with pain, I was scared of that happening. I had forgotten about the man that had put me into the van in the first place, that memory came back really quickly when he grabbed my right arm and jerked me over so that I was facing him while still laying down.

"It's not working." He growled toward the front of the van.

"Here give her this." Someone said from the front seat, handing something to the guy in the back with me. "If that does not work then nothing will." The guy with me grunted in reply before turning to me with a needle in his hand. I took one look, and began to shake my head forgetting about my legs that had started to burn and throb and arm that might explode into pain at any second or movement.

"Please no, no. No. Please." I pleaded with him but he just ignored me and grabbed my right lower arm, pulling it strait even though I tried to pull it back. He was too strong for me to pull my arm away and the more I pulled the tighter and harder his grip became. All of a sudden I just wanted to get away nothing else mattered; I jerked my arm as hard as I could trying desperately to get away from him. I then started to fight, with no thought about what would happen next I dug my finger nails into his arm while bring my upper body up and biting his hand. He let me go with a yelp grabbing his hand letting me see the red gashes that my finger nails had left on his lower arm. I turned around to get away when he grabbed my shoulder and turned me over.

"You're going to pay for that." He growled at me. It was the first time I had really looked him in the eyes and I was terrified at what I say there, it looked like he wanted to rip me apart. Before I know what was happening he had grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled up so that I was sitting in front of him, my drugged mind had just registered what I had done when my head swayed to one side. He had just slapped me! The thought had just entered my mind when it was pushed to the other side. My mind was coming back online and with it the pain was coming to life. My legs were burning and felt like they were on fire, while my left hand and arm exploded with pain. My head was just coming up to date with the pain, and the guy showed no sign of stopping. I do not know how many times he slapped me before he my mind allowed me to express my pain, but when it did I could do nothing but moan. He seemed pleased with the pain he had caused me because he stopped slapping me and let me slide down onto my left side, hiding my hurt arm away from him. My mind swam from the beating he had given me; I could not focus on one thing or express my pain. Both the drug and the beating keeping me from being able to think clearly, I felt him grab my right arm and once again jerk me around so that he could see my face and get to my arm I did not dare look at him so I looked toward the front of the car. I started to shake as he pulled my arm straight; I held still not wanting to get beaten again. I flinched when I felt the needle stab into my arm, it was a small pain compared to everything else I was feeling but it still was an added pain to my load. I could feel him glaring at me and shivered as he jerked the needle out of my arm. I felt the drug start to take effect; the pain began to go away and my mind began to slow down. The guy released my arm and I curled into a ball, protecting my left arm, before darkness began to slip into my sight. I shut my eyes welcoming the darkness that waited for me with open arms, my last thought was about the horses that I had yet to bring in and feed and would not be able to do and hoped that someone would do it until I got back home. It never entered my mind that I just might not make it back home ever again.


	2. The Ship

I was playing around on the ladder that was on the side of the bunk beds that I and my sisters slept in. My older sister was making her bed, or trying to but I wanted to play.

"Please, can I play with your white horse?" I asked her for the tenth time.

"No. Now get out of my way." She yelled at me. I had been bugging her for the last half hour to play with me, but she did not have time to play with me. All she wanted to do was make her bed so that she could go to some party or something.

"But you said that we could play later and its later." I wined

"GO AWAY!" She screamed at me while flipping her almost black hair out of her way letting me see her blue hazel eyes flashing with anger glaring at me.

"FINE!" I screamed right back. Angry tears running down my face, I turned to go down the ladder. As I turned my foot got cough on the blanket of the unmade part of the bed by the ladder and tripped me. I went flying down the ladder and hit the floor rolling just to hit the dresser with my right elbow.

I screamed from the pain and kept screaming, until the pain began to go away from my right elbow and my left wrist began to throb. I had shut my eyes when I had hit the dresser but now opened them, instead of my bed room I saw that I was behind a door made like a jail cell. I looked around in horror as I saw that I was in what looked like I was in a jail, there was other people in other cells. Just then the floor of the whole room tilted to one side, a boat I thought I'm on a boat. I looked around to try to find out where I was, all I found out was that there was stairs going out of the room of cells and that there were guards walking back and forth. It was quiet; the only sound was of the guard's shoes hitting the floor as they walked back and forth. I looked down and saw that my left wrist was black and blue and swollen, just like my foot had been one time. I then remembered how I had been kidnapped, and had gotten my hand hurt. Not just my hand I realized, my legs had been hurt too. I wanted to know how bad they were so I started to pull my right pant leg up, winching as it stayed in place. I did not dare use my left hand for fear that I might hurt it more or it would hurt me. From the look of my pants I had bleed a little and the blood had harden turning it into glue that kept my pants stuck to my legs. It would take water to get my pants off, without it it would be like ripping my skin off my legs again.

I heard footsteps coming toward me and looked up to see that it was a group of guards coming toward me with a boy that looked like he was around my age. They walked past me giving me a view of the boy that was with them, he looked like he had been beaten and there was blood on the side of his shirt. As they passed one of the guards stopped and watched as they went on. He then turned toward me and I looked at him, it was the same guy who had shoved me into the van. I then crawled back ward until I hit the back of my cell, the man just smiled at me.

"Welcome to your new home, sweetheart." He said before moving on. I shut my eyes as tears began to slip down my face. My hand was hurting as well as my legs, but I was scared and just wanted to go home.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew someone was hitting the bars of my cell and sliding a plate of food into my cell. I was not hungry, even at home I did not eat that much, but I knew that I would need something to keep me going. I moved my legs to get up from the cot I was on but stopped at the shooting pain that ran up my legs at the movement. Tears began to run down my face as I covered my mouth to keep from screaming, it helped a little but my hand did not keep me from sobbing. I knew that I would need the food on the plate but I did not know how much more pain I would be able to stand. I looked at the food and saw that rats were coming from some place in the ship and were going to get my food if I did not get it first. I took a deep breath and started to move my legs again, I felt the pain but did not stop moving if I did I knew that I would not move them again until I was forced to. It took some time to get my feet on the floor my legs felt like they were on fire and I was crying sobbing every now and then.

I stayed there sitting on the cot trying to get my sobs under control; it was no use the harder I tried to keep them they would come out louder and faster than before. There was nothing I could do to keep the sobs in and as much as I tried to stop the tears they kept coming harder and faster than any other time that I had cried before. The rats were getting closer to the food, so using my right hand I pushed myself up from the cot. My legs almost gave out on my but I had to get the food, so I forced my legs to keep me up. My legs seemed to explode with my weight on them; I could not breathe because it hurt so much and when I got my breath back my body brought in air to make a scream. I clamped my mouth shut and put my right hand over my mouth again, it helped to keep my scream down but it still came out. The food I thought I must get to the food. I kept thinking that thought over and over in my head as I took my first step, then another and another. With each step a sob escaped my mouth, I don't know how I kept them in but somehow I did.

It took forever for me to get to the food, the rats had made it there before me but I just bent down and shoved them off of the plate. I them took the plate of food and walked back to my cot; I put the food on one end and collapsed on the other end. I laid there for a while.

I woke up to something hitting my back. The first thing I saw was the rats eating my food. I reached over with my right hand and pulled the plate toward me and then shoved the rats off. Most of the food was still on the plate, it was potatoes with green beans. It was not much but it was something and I did not know when I would be able to eat next. There was no fork or spoon so I just used my finders on my right hand to bring the food to my mouth. After I was done eating I set the plate on the floor and crawled into a ball to get some rest. I was tired after waking to get the food and my legs were hurting me.

"You just might make it kid." I heard someone tell me. I lifted my head to see who had spoken to me, but could not tell who had said it. There were other people in the cells next to me but none of them were looking at me, so I laid my head back down and closed my eyes trying to get some sleep and relief from my burning legs.

It took a long time for me to stop sobbing and more time before I stopped crying. After awhile of holding my legs still they stopped hurting, I had looked at them and found that I was bleeding and the blood was soaking into my pants making another layer of glue. I knew that when I moved my legs again they would hurt just as bad as or worse than they had when I had walked to get my food; I was not looking forward to it. I tried to go to sleep, but it seemed that each time I was just on the edge of sleep something would wake me up. There was a lot of guard taking people past me going one way with one person slamming a cell door shut to open a different one and walk past me with that person just to bring them back a few minutes later. Each time the guy who had brought me here would go past he would purposely bang on my door to wake me up or just to make me jump; he would then laugh and walk away. Each time he made me jump my legs would start to ache.

The guards had walked past my cell so many times that when I heard there footsteps I did not think anything of it, when I heard a door being opened I just ignored it thinking it was someone else's door. It was when they grabbed my right arm that I realized it had been my door that they had opened. One of them started to drag me out of my cell, I was wide awake now and began to move my feet so that I was walking with him and not being dragged. My legs exploded at the fast pace but I was too scared to really notice them, the guard who was almost dragging me was the same one who had thrown me into the van. I remembered how he had slapped me and kept slapping me until I could not think straight. He took me up some stairs and into a room, it was all empty except for one chair, he pushed me into the chair and then put straps onto my arms and legs that I had not noticed before. I screamed when he pulled the leg straps tight around my legs, then he left without a back ward glance.

It was some time later that he came back with one other person. I had not really looked at him before but I did now the guard, who had pushed me into the chair, had black hair and brown eyes. He had brown skin like someone who had a dark tan. I did not know his name and I was not sure if I wanted to know it. The other guy looked like a doc. In a movie he had white hair and blue/gray eyes; he was less buff next to the guard and was shorter. At first neither of them looked at me instead they were looking at some of the boxes that they had brought into the room. I wondered what was inside them but did not ask. Just then the guard looked at me; I shivered and pressed up against the chair trying to stay as far away from him as I could. He smiled then walked toward me and just stood over me for a while, he then undid the straps that tied me to the chair and grabbed my right arm. I was thankful that he at least did not grab my left arm just to hurt me. He then brought out a knife and before I knew what was happening he cut through my shirt and hoody leaving me half naked. I yelped in surprise and tried to cover myself up with my left arm, since he still had a hold on my right arm. He did not so much as look at me instead he cut my pants on both sides by my hips; they fell down, along with my underwear, until they came to were my legs had been skinned then stopped pulling at the dried blood that glued my pants to my legs. I could not hold in the small scream at the pain of my pants pulling at the dried blood that was acting as my skin. The guard then let go of my arm just to jerk my pants off along with all of the new skin and dried blood that had been on my legs. I screamed long and loud not even trying to keep it in as the pain exploded in my legs, tears came racing down my face as my scream turned into a sob that caused more sobs to fallow as the pain kept coming and going in waves.

I do not know how but hours later I became aware that I was on the floor, weather I had been dropped on the floor or the guard and put me down gently I will never know. They were just standing around a table that had wheels on the legs, I was still sobbing but they were going away as the pain became bearable once more. After a few minutes the guard came over and handed me a tank top and a pair of shorts, the tank was gray while the shorts were black and short, he also handed me a pair of underwear that was gray also.

"Put them on." He growled at me. I did not waste any time putting the tank on but I took my time with the underwear and shorts, it was not because I like being half naked but that I did not want to get any blood on them or hurt my legs more. I hated the idea that anyone but my mom had seen me naked and even I had put a stop to my mom seeing me naked as soon as she would let me. I was shy about everything taking to strange people having people see me in anything but a hoody and jeans, I was shy about people seeing me in a t-shirt let alone a tank and shorts. I kept my eyes down embarrassed about being seen in a tank and shorts, but they both just ignored me. That is for a moment then the Doc. nodded his head and the guard grabbed my right arm and pulled me toward the table. I gasped as he grabbed me by my waist and lifted me up onto the table and pushed me down so that I was laying on my back, he then strapped me to the table by my arms and legs above my knee and around my ankles. He also put a strap aver my belly so that I could not move, then the Doc. came over and began to work on my legs. I screamed as he rubbed them with alcohol as hard as he could, it felt like he was rubbing the rest of my flesh off my bones. I do not know how long I screamed, maybe four hours maybe five, but by the time he was done working on my legs and had the both banged up as tight as possible my throat hurt almost as much as my legs did. It was hard for me to breathe my lungs screaming at me for using them for so long. My voice was long gone and I did not know if I had damaged my vocal cords but it sure felt like I had.

But they were not done with me like I hoped they would be. They moved on to my left hand that had been hurt also. They started by taking an ex-ray of it and then talking to each other in soft word do that I could not hear them. I closed my eyes and thought of home as they once again talked to each other I thought of my mom and dad and my two sisters one older one younger than me. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew was that my left hand was exploding in pain, I screamed like a banshee as they moved my hand this way and that making the bones go back into place. My hand had been swollen but something in the food had made the swelling go down, that did not help with the pain though it just made it easier for them to see what they could do to hurt me. I never had liked doctors and I had liked them less when I had broken by right elbow now I hated them. The doc. seemed to like hurting me it took forever before they gave one last tug on my wrist and then left me alone for the moment. I had not been able to stop myself form screaming and now because of that my throat was hurting worse and I knew that I had damaged my vocal cords. Tears slipped down my face I do not know when I had started crying but now they flowed as I waited for the pain to start again. It never did the guard took off the straps and picked me up like he had the first time he put me into the van. This time though he took me to my cell and dropped me onto the cot in my cell, I did not care the pain that ran through my body at being dropped on a cot was nothing to what I had just gone through, but that did not stop the hiss of pain that made it past my clenched teeth.

I closed my eyes I just wanted to go home I did not want to be here anymore. Fresh tears made their way down my face; I did not try to stop them there was no point trying to stop them just like there was no point trying to scream when you were being tortured. I looked at my left hand it looked like it was in some kind of cast, they had not tortured me although it felt like they were they were just trying to help me. A looked at my lower legs showed the same black cloth cast, they had helped me but still why keep me in a cell locked up like I had done something wrong? I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I lessened to the guard's footsteps the open and closing of a cells door and then everything began to fade as sleep finely took me into its dark feeling less arms keeping me safe from the pain that was still going through my body like a heartbeat.

I woke up shivering. I was cold and wet. There was a storm going on outside, I could hear the rain pounding on the ship. I could hear the thunder, loud as a gunshot, going off every few seconds. It was like being in the middle of a hundred bombs and they were going off one right after the other. I looked up toward the ceiling watching water come through cracks in the roof over the cell and fall to the ground. I wished I could see the sky watch the lighting flash across the dark clouds and witness the power that the storm displayed for all to see. I had all ways liked thunder storm and would spend hours watching them as they went past, my younger sister did not see the beauty in them and my older sister did not see the power that they had.

The ship rolled over the waves making it much safer to be on the ground then on the cot. I gently moved my legs over the cot's side and eased myself down to the floor; I then crawled backward under the cot giving me a dryer place to stay. The ship's jail cell room had never been a sunny warm place but with my pants and hoody it had been warm enough that had changed now that I only had no a tank and shorts with no shoes or socks, add that to the fact that I'm now wet because of the leaks in the roof and that the storm made the air colder did not help it just made it colder. There was nothing that I could do but try to keep warm. My legs were burning again from my use of them and my left hand was starting to ache, weather from the cold or from me moving to a little to get under the cot I do not know. I was getting used to the pain now and just shoved it out of my mind, there was nothing to do but lay there or go to sleep and I was tired to sleeping all day.

I listened to the storm, the guard were not walking around instead they seemed to be gone altogether. Most likely they were in a dry room waiting out the storm. Hours later the rain seemed to stop and the thunder decided to move along. The guard came back and made their rounds making sure that everybody was where they should be. They also brought a tall silver glass's, which seemed to have something in them, and silver bowls that held some kind of food. I watch as the guards put one of each in each cell and the people in the cell would start to eat from the bowl and drink form the glass. When they put a bowl and glass into my cell I waited until they where five cells down before I moved out from under my cot. My legs began to throb as soon as I moved them; I ignored them and stood up then walked over to the bowl and glass. There was what looked to be water in the glass and oatmeal in the bowl. I picked both of them up and walked back to the cot, but instead of getting onto it, like everybody else was, I crawled under it. I felt safer under the cot then I did on top of it plus here it was a little warmer, and I was away from all of the eyes that seemed to be looking at me all the time. I started to eat the oatmeal but stopped after the first bite, whenever I swallowed my throat felt like I was skinning it. Tears fell from my eyes as my throat was set on fire from swallowing one bite. I took the glass of water and took a sip thinking that it would help me, it did not it hurt worse than the oatmeal going down. I pushed the bowl and glass away from me and curled into a tight ball. After a little while I grabbed the glass and forced myself to drink three mouthfuls of water, it was like running hot lava down your throat but without water I knew that I would die or eat. I gave my throat time to stop hurting and once the pain had gone down to throb that I could stand without tears going down my face I took three mouthfuls of the oatmeal before I let myself have another break from the pain in my throat. It took me three hours to eat and drink a quarter of the oatmeal and water, in that time I had gotten used to the pain and just finished eating the oatmeal ignoring the pain that it cause me. I saved the water for later not knowing when I would get any next, after I was done eating I pushed the bowl out from under the cot and watched as it slide and stopped a few inches from the door of my cell.

I had gotten used to dealing with pain; I could now walk to the door of my cell without crying and could eat with my throat on fire. I did not like dealing with pain and if I could I would like to make it go away. But it was not going to just walk away here, and the guard would not give me any pain meds. to help take the pain away so I had to learn to deal with it.

This is how my days went; I did not know when it was day or night. All I knew was that we were feed and given water at least once a day I think. It might have been twice a day or even five times a day I do not know if they had been feeding us once a day I would have been on board this ship for a little less than a month. What I did know is how I spent my time here, I was feed and watered and then I would go to sleep if there was a storm them I would listen to the storm until it would go away then it was back to sleep or listen to the guards footsteps as they made their rounds. I was not taken out of my cell again, and after a while my legs began to heal along with my hand and throat.

I was listening to a storm raging, one of the loudest ones that I had heard and the wildest ones, when a loud speaker came on. I heard its crackle as it came to life over the storm. It was the first time that I had heard it so I came out from under my cot where I spent almost all of my time.

"Only ten of you will survive." A voice said, "Only ten out of a hundred will survive, and will be brought back to the ship and back to their families." The same voice said. "So chose now who gets to live and who gets to die, because only ten will be allowed to survive." As the voice finished the loud speaker was then shut off and cell door were beginning to be opened and people where taken out by the guards. The boat began to rock harder than normal as the storm began to get stronger, guards and the people with them were slammed into the cell walls as they went down between the cells. It did not take long before my own cell door was opened and I was grabbed by a guard that I had never seen before I walked with him toward the stairs wondering what was going on and what the voice meant by only ten will survive. Survive what, the boat?

The guard stopped at one of the unopened cells and grabbed another girl that looked to be around my age, he then took both of us up the stairs and past the room that I had been first taken to. We kept walking or running as it seemed to me up stairs and down empty hallways. After five minutes my legs were beginning to burn and my hand was starting to throb from the movement of me running. After another five minutes we came to the deck of the ship, I had not know how big it was but now as I stood on the deck for the first time with the wind tarrying at my and the rain stinging my skin I realized how big the ship was that I was on. It was as big as a cruise ship, I was soaked the second I stepped onto the deck I could not see with the rain and wind but the guard seemed to be able to because he started walking forward dragging me and the other girl along with him.

It did not take us long to get to a group of people, most of them were guards that stood in a circle around a group of girls. I was pushed into the group and almost instantly was grabbed again by another guard, he just held me by my right arm. I started to shiver, which hurt my arm and made my legs begin to ache, from the cold wind and rain. It was then that I looked around and saw one of the guards with a girl step up to the railing on the side of the ship and throw her over the side. I just stared at were the girl had been a second ago, I did not realize that the guard who had me was walking forward toward the same rail until it was too late. Before I could do anything he had lifted me up by my waist and then tossed me over the rail. There was nothing under me and for a second I seemed to just hang in mid air. That did not last long though and I began to fall, down toward the giant waves that seemed to reach up to grab me like hungry wild animals jumping to get there victim with greedy hand to pull my down to my dark watery grave.


	3. Getting to the Island

I fell for what felt like hours, the ship seemed to keep going and going. I saw a wave towering over me right before I hit the water. I went under the waves and looked up; everything was calm around me I could see the surface that looked like a ceiling on a house. It was like standing in a field that was flat I could see for miles in any direction, I could also see downward and upward, it was like flying but in water. It was then that the burning in my lungs came to my mind and the need for air took hold of me. I reach up one hand at a time ignoring the pain in my left hand as I used it to get to the surface. It seemed like my lungs would explode when I finally reach the surface and tried to take a breath of air. I got a mouth full of salt water instead as a wave came crashing down on top of me pushing me back under the water. I tried again for the surface and got a lungful of air this time and a quick look around. The ship was nowhere to be found there was nothing that I could see but water and huge towering waves. My legs began to sting from the salt but there was nothing that I could do about it at the moment I was trying to keep my head above the water and I was not doing a very good job of that.

I never did like to swim and never could really swim except dog paddle and that was in a swimming pool with calm water not in the ocean with waves the size of skyscrapers. Tears began to run down my face as the pain in my hand and legs began to become too much for me to handle. I had been dog paddling around the bigger waves for an hour or so but now there was no way I could get away from the one that was coming right at me, I was tired and could not seem to get the strength to get out of its way so when it came down it took me with it. I was pushed down deeper than I had been before and this time I was pushed right into a current, there was no getting out of it and no getting to the surface. I fought it as hard as I could but there seemed to be no hope of getting out of the current, I tried one last time kicking with both feet at the same time and using my hands to help pull me through the water. For a second I seemed to speed up and it seem that I would die in the current with my lungs about to explode my hand and legs on fire. Everything seemed to become still in that moment that I had given up then I could see the surface coming down to meet me. I gave one last push with my legs one last pull with my arms and then my head came above the surface, for a second my head stayed above the water giving me a view of the sky with lightning racing around in the clouds each bolt trying to be the fastest and brightest in the sky I felt the power of the storm then I began to sink back into the calm of the water. I closed my eyes as darkness took me away for what I thought would be forever, I never felt the hands that wrapped around my waist and pulled me back toward the surface and sweet air.

When I woke up I opened my eyes and looked at a clear blue sky. I felt the movement of the water pushing whatever I was on up and then letting it fall back down, just like the movement on the ship but smaller and I could feel it more. I looked around and found that I was on a one of those life boats that you see survivors get on when their boat sinks, the only problem is that my boat did not sink I was thrown over the side. There were six of us in the boat altogether, five boys and me being the only girl. All of them looked older than me and were about a foot bigger than me, my doctors say that I'm small for my age, I was not a good judge of age all I know was that like me they were just kids. They all had their eyes closed so I did not say anything not that I had anything to say anyway. I also saw that there were packs of water bottles in the middle of the life raft with some beefy jerky, I did not eat meat but if I got hungry and the beef was all there was I would eat it.

I looked back up at the sky; it was so big and blue. I had not seen the sky for a month, and could not get enough of it. The sea sprayed me with mist but just being out of my cell was enough for right now. I watched the sun go across the sky happy that I was not cold any more; the sun warmed the air enough that it felt like a warm summer day. My legs and hand felt good they did not hurt and I wanted to keep it that way. I know from experience on the boat that if they did start hurting I would get used to it and be able to work through the pain. All day I watched the sky and the sun making its journey across the sky.

The sun was on its way down, if I put my hand up to it my pointer finger wound touch the bottom of the sun and my pinky would touch the sea where it disappeared in the distance, when I heard some of the boys start so move around and wake up. I did not move not out of fear but because I was starting to drift off to sleep. I had just let my eyes slide shut when I felt the boy next to me sit up and start to move around. I shared my bed with my younger sister and I was used to her moving around before she really fell asleep. For a second I thought that this had all been a bad dream and if I opened my eyes it would be my little sister shifting around getting settled to go to sleep. I opened my eyes half hoping that it had all been a nightmare and not really real, but I did not see the underside of my older sisters top bunk but the wide blue plan of the open sky. I had become so used to the up down movement of the raft that I had not thought about it but with opening my eyes it all came back. I sighted and rolled over to get more comfortable only to feel my throat begin to burn from the use, as it was not even half healed from my scream when the doc. had fixed my legs and hand, and to moan as my left hand exploded into pain as I had put my weight onto it without thinking. My throat went from being a left over fire to being a blazing bonfire as the moan left my mouth making me clench my mouth closed in the hope that no more sounds would come out to hurt my throat more than it already was. I waited for the tears to come but after a few minutes I realized that they were not coming this time. Using my right hand I rolled back over so that I was on my back with my left hand draped over my stomach. I just stared up at the sky trying not to think about moving but I knew that I would not be going back to sleep any time soon, so using my right hand I pushed myself up and back so that I was sitting against the side of the raft. My legs protested about the movement by starting to ache which I just ignored, each breath hurt my throat but that was nothing new it had been hurting me to breathe since I had stopped screaming when they fixed my hand.

I just sat there for a minute breathing in the fresh sweet salty air, sitting up let me get to the fresh currents of air that was always moving taking away the old stale air and replacing it with new clean air. I then opened my eyes to see all five of the boys looking at me and for the first time I looked them over. All of them had black or dark brown hair with blue or gray eyes. They all had on gray tank top with black shorts like I had on, the only difference was that none of them had the black bandage raps on that I could see and they were looking at me like I would fall over and die. I did not say anything not that I had anything to say or that my throat would let me anyway, I just turned my head so that I was looking at the sun that was now touching the water. My attention was brought back to the boys when one of them touched my shoulder. I turned my head to see who had touched me to find the kid who had walked past my cell the first day I was on the boat. He handed me a bottle of water and some of the jerky, I looked at the jerky and decided that water would do for now I was not hungry at the moment and I did not know how my throat would do with the jerky. I then took the water from him and left the jerky. He tried giving me the jerky again but I shook my head at him.

"Come on you need to eat." He said in a low voice. I looked at him again and started to shake my head again when he grabbed my left hand and placed the jerky into before saying "I will not take no for a answer." In the same low voice, as soon as he touched my hand it had exploded into pain. This time the tears did not wait the started to fall a second after the pain. I guess my tears had taken place for screams. I ducked my head knowing that he had not meant to hurt me but only wanted me to eat so I nodded and took the jerky and then turned to watch the sunset while I tried to stop my tears from falling hoping that he had not seen them. It took a while but I soon got them under control and as soon as it did I turned so that my back was once again against the raft and I was looking toward the boys. I ate the jerky and drank some of my water putting in beside me for later since there was only so much of it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy who had given me the water and jerky make sure that I ate and drank. As soon as I was done I laid back down knowing that it would get colder as the sun went down.

I was right I only took an hour after the sun went down that I started to shiver from the cold. I could feel the boys start to move together to use each other's body heat and to let the others use their heat to keep warm. I wanted to join them but I would just be wrong to for me to sleep with the boys, so I stayed where I was. It started to get colder by the second and just having a tank and shorts on did nothing to help me keep warm, my shivering began to turn into shaking that made my legs and hand start to throb with pain. I did not moan or say anything I just laid there and took the pain as if it was nothing. I do not know how long I laid there shivering before a hand wrapped around my waist and pulled me back against a hard body. I felt the warmth wrap around me and sighed, it only took half a minute for my shivering and shaking to stop. I did not think about the hand and arm that was still around my stomach or that I was pressed up against a boy that I did not know, all I was thinking about was the warmth that was seeping into my skin and making me warm from the inside to the outside. It only took a few minutes for me to fall asleep and start to dream.

I was at the barn, where my mom always took us, and I was riding one of the horses. I could feel it moving like a rocking horse under me with my mom riding behind me keeping me warm and safe from the cold. But my mom never did ride with me. Well there was a first for everything, I turned to smile look at her but came face to face with the guard who had been the caused all of my pain. I did not move and he just smiled down at me before he grabbed me and up me up onto the table and began to rip the skin off of my healing legs. As pain ripped through my legs I began to scream. He then grabbed my hand and began to crush it with his strength, before I had held back from screaming too loud to keep from hurting my throat any more now I let go and screamed as loud as I could.

My screaming woke me up, as well as everybody else on the raft. My eyes flew open and I pushed away from the boy that I had been sleeping with. My legs, hand, and throat exploded into pain at the quick use of them. All of the boy had jumped awake and were looking around to find out what the screaming was about. I was huddling against the side of the life raft as far away from the boys as I could get. It took them all five seconds to figure out who had screamed and why, but none of them knew the why they did not know what had happened to me only that I had had a nightmare. They all looked at each other and shook their head before laying back down to get some more sleep, that is all of them but the boy who had been sleeping with me. I had been peeking out at them from where I was huddled shaking from the nightmare, and had seen their looks of disgust they had thrown at me for waking them up. It made me start to shake harder hurting my hand and legs more as I wondered what they would do to me. I then felt a hand touch my shoulder; I jumped and shied away from the hand expecting laughter and then what ever pain they decided to give me.

"It's OK." Came a soft voice, "It was just a dream." He said in a calm voice. I peeked up at him, there was no anger in his face his eyes were a warm blue and he gave me a small smile just a little lifting of his lips at the corners. I was on my side in a ball still shaking; he then laid down so that he was between me and the others. I watched him not sure if I could trust him or not, he just closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep. I looked at the sky and saw the stairs for the first time in a month. They were so beautiful and there was so many of them. I tensed when the boy moved closer until he was wrapped tightly around me, using my body heat to keep warm while letting me use his to keep warm. It took a little bit for me to relax but when I did I went back to watching the stars. I knew that if I closed my eyes I would be back in that room where all of my pain had taken place besides I was not really that tired. So I watched the stars until they faded away and then I watched the sky turning from pick black to dark blue to purple and pink and then red and back to blue again.

The sun was high in the sky when the boys began to stir. At first they just rolled over or stretched but after a few minutes they really began to wake up. There was nothing to do so everybody just moved to the sides of the boat. After a few minutes the boy who had curled around me sighed and then moved away. For a second I felt lonely and sad without him around me keeping me safe, but that did not make sense I didn't even know his name let alone know him. I pushed the thoughts away from my mind and sat up so that I could look around. There was nothing but water and the sky; the boys were getting into the beef jerky again. I was handed a piece of the jerky which I took and ate with some of the water that I still had. With nothing else to do we just laid around all day around the edge of the raft and at night everybody would get together into the center of the boat sharing each other's heat. Each morning we ate a piece of the jerky and drank about half a bottle of water, each night I had a nightmare in the middle of the night. It took me three nights before I could have a nightmare and let everybody else sleep through the night, two more days to be able to stay with the group all night long. While everybody else would sleep the entire night I only slept half the night and then half the day while everybody else would cat nape through the day. The days seemed to blur together until we could not tell if we had been on the raft for days or weeks or months.

The sun was just coming out of the water when I saw island. It looked to be just mountains but there was green here and there. From the way that I was looking at it I could see that there was a place that seemed to be a big river coming out of it. Other than the river the island did not look inviting it looked like it was a warning to people to stay away from it. I turned and looked at the boy; all of them were asleep and would stay asleep for a long time yet. I always had gotten up early in the morning even before I had been kidnapped; the boys on the other hand seemed like the type that stayed in bed all day. I was happy I had just slept the whole night instead of the half I usually got before I had a nightmare. Last night I had a nightmare but I was able to go right back to sleep after I had woken up. I felt good after getting a whole night's sleep and could not wait to get to the island and be able to walk or run anything instead of sitting in this raft with nothing to do but sleep. The island seemed to be getting closer which I was grateful for it would mean some room and things to do. My legs have been healing; I could move them now without them hurting me. My throat seemed to be healing also but it was slow going. It still hurt to drink and eat let alone talk or make any kind of noise, anything that worked my vocal cords or the muscles in my throat would set my whole throat to burning. It was easier to breath although it still burned with each breathe it was less painful to breathe. My arm was the only thing that didn't seem to be healing, just moving the muscles would set it off into an explosion of pain that would dull into an ache and then it would throb for hours afterward.

The waves seemed to get bigger and faster as we neared the island and it was not until midday that the boys decided to get up and see what was making the raft jump a foot out of the water only to drop down a second later like a roller coaster. Nobody said anything when they saw the island but they did slap each other on the back and smile. Everybody left me alone although the boy who had been helping me did give me a smile but I was just looking at the island wondering if we could be found there by a passing boat or a airplane going over head. It when the sun was going down that I noticed the one thing that was hidden from us until now. The waves had been getting bigger and meaner while the day went on, now I saw why. There was white water up ahead. It looked wild and hard going. If or when we go through that we would be tossed around like a piece of paper in a tornado. I turned to look at the boys; all of them were in the middle of the boat already going to sleep. I reached out and grabbed the boy that had made sure I had water and food by his shoulder and shook him until he looked up at me. At first he just glared at me for waking him up but I was beyond being scared of him or anyone we were heading right into white water that could kill us if we were not ready for it. After give me a glare he went back to sleep, I took a look at the island just to find that we were going faster and picking up speed every second. I grabbed his shoulder and began to shake him harder.

"What?" he growled at me. I jumped at his voice and for a second I was back in the van with the guard towering over me growling at me about how he would make me pay for hurting him. I shivered at the thought of what this boy could do to me, I was sure the terror that was running through my blood showed in my eyes but I pushed it down and giving him one more push I then point toward the island. As first he just shook his head at me but then I grabbed his shoulder again and gave him another push before pointing again to the island. "Fine." He said "What could be so importation….." he stopped talking once he saw the white water and how fast we were heading toward it. He did not wait around but acted as soon as he had seen what was coming up ahead. He turned around and began to hit the other boys waking them up harder and faster than I did with him. "Get up, white water is ahead!" he yelled at them. At that everyone jumped up and began to look at what was coming up too fast. "Everybody hang on to something. No matter what keep on the life raft." He called. Everybody began to grab hand holds, I looked around for a hand hold but before I could grab one though we hit the white water with a wave that pushed us up into the air just to bring us down into the middle of the white water. There was nothing that I could do; I was thrown into one of the boys just to be thrown into the white water. My hand was on fire but I could do nothing about that but except the pain and use it to try to get back to the surface and to the air that my lungs burned for. The water pushed me one way and then another, there was no way that I had any hope of reaching the surface but I tried anyway. I got my head above the surface once but then a wave pushed me down until I felt the bottom sands pressing into my back. I fought my way upward but instead of going upward I went sideways. I still fought my lungs felt like they would explode and I began to fight harder, my hand on fire my lungs screaming for air. I almost got to the surface just an inch away I pushed my hand out into the air but at the moment a wave came and hit me. It pushed me up out of the water and then back into what looked like water but as soon as I broke the surface of the water and went under I came face to face with solid rock. For a second I felt the shock of the impact and then there was only darkness.

I woke up slowly. I gradually became aware that my hand was aching, and that I was cold and shivering. I was lying on my stomach with my left hand under me and my right hand out in front of my head. I lifted my head to look around. What I saw surprised me. I had made it to the island, and was laying on the beach right beside the mouth of the river that we had drifted to. The only thing is that we had not gone into a river but what looked like a lake that had a mouth open to the ocean. I rolled over and sat up looking at the lake. It was an oval lake with the opening just before it made its turn for the short side of the oval. Looking across the lake I saw what could be a waterfall but I was not sure if it was a water fall since there was a little dip with trees covering it but giving me a peek of mist which led me to believe that it was a waterfall. All around the lake was trees that seemed to keep going to make a forest, around the mouth of the opening was rocks. I could still see the white water from where I was and it looked just as bad as it had when we were about to go into it from the ocean.

With that thought I began to look around for the guys that were in the lift raft with me. The raft was nowhere in sight and neither were the boys. I looked at the sun to find that it was half way under the water of the ocean. I stood up and tried to see if there was a place where I could spend the night. I did not know what kind of animals were on this island plus I wanted somewhere warm already the air was becoming colder and I was starting to shiver harder which was making my hand hurt more. One more look around showed me that my best bet was the forest, so I started to walk into the trees. My legs started to throb a little but it was nothing to worry about, it was just the new skin being stretched. The stinging of the flesh that had no skin over it was nothing to me, it was like the wind blowing I was aware of it but did not think anything of it. I had only been walking about fifteen minutes when I came to three trees that had fallen down. They had fallen on top of each other and then grass and other plants had grown over top of them making unnoticeable. I had been walking up a hill and had just reached a place on the hill that I had not seen before. It was a level plan maybe five feet deep before the hill continued like the step was not even there. The step was hidden so well that nobody could see it from the bottom and just see the lip of it from the top. It is here that the trees had come down and left a hole like door open. When I saw this I went inside without thinking, the sun saw taking the rest of its light away and I wanted some place with a roof over my head. With the last light of the day I looked around and found that the trees had made a den like sod house with what looked like a cave that went into the hill side. Before the light was taken away I found a place to lie down and crawled into a ball, my hand was hurting and my legs need to rest. I was lonely without the boys and cold, no matter what I did I could not stop shivering. I then began to cry, there was no reason to cry but once the tears started I could not stop them. It took hours to get to sleep and then when I did sleep it was filled with dreams of pain and the guard laughing. After each dream it would take a long time for me to be able to shut my eyes and get back to sleep, in all I think I might have slept an hour maybe two if I was lucky.

When the sun came up I was ready to go look for the boys. It took me two hours before I found the lake again. I began looking around the lake but by the time that darkness started to take over I had not found the boys or the raft, all day of walking and I had not even reached the place where the waterfall was yet. With nothing else to do I found a tree near the lake that was hollowed out and would keep me safe from any animals that were out at night, hopefully. My second night on the island was not much better than the first, but I was getting used to being alone again. My legs were hurting a lot from all of the use as well as my throat, because I was breathing harder then I had for awhile, my hand was also hurting from using it to balance myself when needed. It had been a cold day and an even colder night. I would need more clothes if I was going to make it, then a thought came to me. What if winter was beginning here on this island? Would it just keep getting colder or would it warm up? I shoved my fears of winter out of my mind. Just find the boys I thought. Saying it over and over in my head as the night began to pass slowly. That night I had three nightmares before the sun came up. I was hungry and thirsty. My throat was hurting more the pain never leaving me now, my legs were the same throbbing when I was not using them and stinging and giving off tiny explosions of pain when I walked on them. It took me three days to get to the waterfall; it was noon when I saw the little lake that came off the big one and the big waterfall that made all of the mist.

It was there on my side of the little lake that I found the life raft. All of the water and food was gone. The boys were nowhere to be found. With few options I headed back the way I had come, I would go back to the den that I had slept my first night here on the island. I would try to live off the land. I drank from any stream I came across they were few and far between, and most of them were salt water and not worth drinking. Days later I made it to where I had woken up, my legs, throat, and hand hurting along with my feet that was ripped up from walking around with no shoes. I was tired beyond belief and I was starving. My only hope was to find a stream and maybe some berries. If I found my way back to the den and found food and water around it I just might make it. If not then I would die of starvation.

It only took me a half hour to find the den and two hours later I found a stream that was not too far away from my den. After taking a drink I began to walk up the stream bank, five minutes of walking and I came to a big berry bush. There were raspberries mixed with black berries, it was a huge patch of bushes full to overflowing with berries. I ate berries until I was full, by that time the sun was going down and so I headed back to my den. With the sun almost down my stomach full of food and water, my body tired from days of walking with little food and water, I was asleep almost as soon as I laid down.


	4. The Island

I watched the sun coming out of the water of the lake. I had been up for hours and made my way back to the lake, I guess I was hoping that I would find the boys here. In the month that I had lived on this island I have seen no one only birds, deer, squirrels, and other little animals but never a human. I now knew my way around the lake, where to find food and water and places that could be used to store food. I did not know how long I was going to be here so I had started to pick berries and dry them to put up in case there came a time when I could not find any food. I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back on to my elbows. The weather had warmed up in the time I had been here until it got so hot that I had to spend the day in water to keep cool enough but even then I still felt too hot in the water sometimes. I remembered when I first came here I was hurt and cold, now I was fine or almost healed. My legs had finished healing within two weeks while my hand and throat still bugged me sometimes. Before I would have to stop and rest in the middle of the day, now I could walk all day long plus a little at night. I looked down at my legs there is big scars on them, the whole front of each of my legs is one big scar from when I had skinned them being forced into the van when I was kidnapped. I had taken the bandages off a week ago to see to I needed them still on, it had been getting too hot to have them on. So now they were back at the den. I had started using my left hand just a couple days ago, it hurt to use it but still I had to get it working again. I did not know when I should start to use it but I figured that if it got to hurting really bad then I would stop using it for a while. It was easier picking and caring berries back to the den using two hands instead of just one.

I pushed myself up and began to walk back to my den. I wanted to get there before the sun made the day too hot to do anything, if the weather kept heat up there would be no more good berries to pick and that meant I would have to find another food source. On my way back I found a patch of berries that had not started to go bad they must have just started to grow a few days ago. In this heat I had seen berries go from under ripe to overripe in a day, but these were ripe and ready to be picked. I picked most of them off the bush and put them into the book bag that I had found in the lift raft the second time I had gone to it. The berries filled the whole bag up which I was grateful for, with a full bag I headed home or what had become home on this island my den. In all it took me only half an hour to get back to the den, usually it would only be a five minute walk or a two minute jog but I had stopped to pick the berries. The berries were worth the time and besides I had time to spare there was nothing to do but explore and eat which I devoted all of my time to doing.

Instead of going right inside the den I went up the rest of the hill to where there is a rock that I use to dry any berries that I could bring back on my walks. I then began to spread the berries over the rock so that they could dry, it would only be a few hours for them to do so and during those hours I would have to stay right by the rock otherwise birds would come and eat all of them. I know this is a fact the first two times I had left for a few minutes and come back to an empty rock with just berry stains to show for the work I had done. It did not take long for me to empty the bag, I thought about putting leaves on top of the berries but decided against it, the birds would just drag the leaves off and then eat the berries. I sat with my back up against a tree only a foot away from the rock any farther and the birds would come looking for a free meal. By the time that the berries were dried I was sweating from the heat and eager to get into some water. I piled all of the now dried berries into my backpack and then headed down to the den. I had only taken two steps when I saw the deer. There was a group of them maybe twenty and all of them were running like running for their lives running. I do not know why but I was scared by the sight of them running in a mad panic that had me running for my den. I had just gotten inside when I felt pure fear run through my body; somehow I knew that whatever was making the deer panic was right outside my den just down the hill maybe just five to ten feet away. I crouched down to the side of the door to the den hoping that whatever it was it would just go away and leave me alone.

Five minutes later I knew it was gone; there was no sound or anything just the fear that had been racing in my blood was going away telling me that it was OK to go back outside. It had been hot outside but here in the den it felt like an oven. I stayed still until the birds began to sing and talk back and forth again; I had not realized that they had stopped until they had started again. I then took the dried berries to the back of the den where a cave started. In the cave were natural places where I could store food. Animals did not seem to come back here, and even if they did they would not be able to get to my berries. There on the side of the cave was a wall that was made of natural drawers that were opened, in here is where I put the all of my dried berries, each drawer seemed to have a natural lid that only a human could open and close. I checked the other drawers that were filled with berries to make sure that they had not been touched. Happy that no one has touched them I put the newly dried berries into a drawer next to the already filled ones. It took four backpack loads to fill one drawer and I had just started this one, but with the heat it looked like this might be the last load of berries I would be able to bring in until the weather cools down some. With all of my work done I went to the door and looked down the hill. There was nothing that I could see but the fear that had run through my blood was still fresh in my mind so I waited a while before going outside. I went down the hill to see if I could find any tracks of whatever had scared the deer.

It did not take long to find the deer tracks and even though I wanted to lay down in a cool stream I want to know what had cause my blood to run cold with fear, now that I thought about it it had been a cold fear running in my veins just one step away from panic. It took me half an hour before I found the footprint, there was just one but that one was enough to have me shaking from fear. It was the paw print of a dogs or wolf, but it was huge maybe bigger than a horses hoof. After a full minute of looking at that big paw print and thinking about just how big the animal was I turned and ran back up the hill forgetting about the heat, I dove into my den and curled into a tight ball. To say that I was scared was an understatement, I was terrified. What kind of place was this to have animals that were so big? For the rest of the day and that night I stayed inside the den not even daring to move an inch in case the big dog or wolf came back. If it did I was dead, there was nothing that I could do to defend myself against a human let alone an overgrown wild dog or wolf. I barely got any sleep each and every sound making me jump and come wide awake.

At noon the next day I walked out of the den. The only reason was because of the heat, that night I had been sweating even in the coolest part of the night, and I need water badly. I headed to the nearest water source there was. It just happened to be a half hours walk away; I started the walk as jumpy as a rabbit in a room full of cats. But after a while I started to settle down, I had lived on this island for a month, a little over a month, and have not yet been attacked or seen any signs of big overgrown dogs or wolves. As soon as I got to the stream I took a drink. There was nothing better than fresh water after going without water on a really hot day and night. After I had got my drink I began to look around for any berries that were not too over ripe. I had been going hungry lately but it was nothing to worry about, I had food stored up and I would not touch it until I could not find any more berries to eat.

I kept moving going from one berry bush to another sometimes find a new berry bush and marking were it was at in my mind so that I could come back when berries were more plentiful. The sun just had a quarter of the sky left to go before it disappeared into ocean when I came to the lake. I had started out my day of hunting for food going away from the lake and then made a circle so that I was back at the lake five minutes away from my den. There was nothing different about the lake it was just if I was going to get off the island it would be by this lake that connected to the ocean. I looked at the sun then started to go back to my den when I noticed the box in the water. It was only about five feet out into the water. But still what was a box doing here? Did it really matter why it was here? It's here now and there might be food inside. With that thought I jogged over and pulled it the rest of the way up onto the beach. A look around showed another smaller box. I looked at the smaller box and decided to get it also. As soon as I had both of them up on the beach I decided to open them. Each had a latch on one side holding the lid closed, the latch was held shut by a carabiner, a D clip like key-chain thing. The smaller box was shaped like a rectangle and was small like a briefcase it also had a handle that I could hold it with, while the bigger one was a square shape that came up to a little above my knee with no handle whatsoever.

One look at the sun showed that I just had time to make two trips to the den before there was no light left; opening the boxes would have to wait until tomorrow morning. I took the smaller box first putting back in the cave before going for the bigger box. The bigger one took much more time and effort to get it back and into den. Using the last light of the day I put it right beside the smaller one. I made one more trip jogging to the nearest stream that had stood the heat and drank my fill before jogging back to the den. It had become a habit always checking to make sure that there was water nearby, ever since the first stream dried up I always liked to know where a good full water source was before going to sleep. It took half the night before I fell asleep, knowing that there was a big dog or wolf running around somewhere would take anyone's sleep away.

I was up before the sun. One look outside told me that the sun would be coming up in an hour or so. There was no way that I would be able to go back to sleep, so I decided to take a walk around. I headed straight to the nearest stream, looking for berries along the way. It was too early for me to jog to the stream, plus it was too dark for me to really see where I'm going I could just make out trees that were a lighter shade of black then the empty space it had taken me a while to get used to the darkness of night here but after a month of not being able to sleep I had adapted to walking in the dark. I was just starting to jog at night when it was the coolest but right now I was not really awake and could/would run into trees or fall down a steep hill. Once I got to the stream I was awake enough to start jogging, I drank my fill and then started running. It was my one joy here on the island, having been on the ship and the a life raft then not being able to run because of my legs I took every chance to run now that I could. Lately night was the only time that I could run because of the heat. By the time I was tired and out of air from running the sun was up and it was getting hotter, but then not as hot as it had been lately, I was hot and sweaty from running but usually I would be sweating for the heat and not from running. I guess that the heat wave was going away.

I walked for a few minutes then picked the jog back up and started back to the den. I wanted to see what was in the boxes that had washed up. I hoped that there was food in them because I had not seen any new berries and the bushes looked like they were done growing berries. I did not know what else there was to eat in the forest other than berries, and right now it looked like berry season was done.

Once I got back to the den I brought both boxes to the front of the den. I started with the big box taking off the D-clip and then lifting the lid. I took out the first thing that I saw, it was a black leather suit. It was a jacket, with pants, boots, and gloves all put together into a suit that you could not take apart. The suit was all smooth with no designs on it the only thing on it was a zipper that went for the neck all the way down to where your belly button would be. Looking back in the box I took out several more suits, all of them the same just different sizes, before I came to something else. I took out black shorts and gray tank tops, there was two kinds of both some of the shorts were short girl shorts while others were long boy shorts. The tanks were the same some had the straps wide and they hanged lose for the boys while the girls had the straps smaller, almost just strings, and tight fitting for the girls. There was a couple backpacks but that was it nothing else, no food no water nothing but clothes. I packed the box back up and put it back into the cave, I was happy for the clothes I had nothing against wearing the same thing over and over again but I like to have clothes even though they showed off more than I wanted them too and I'm happy that I had more for when the ones I wore fell apart I would have more to replace them. I was bummed out that there was no food but there might be food in the second box.

When I opened the smaller box the first thing that I saw was a black cloth that had been placed over whatever was in the box, once I removed the cloth I could just look at what was before me for a few seconds before I started pulling thing out. Four bows complete with three dozen arrows each, four arrow quivers; four Japan sword sets, three swords that are three different sizes one large one medium and one small, alone with their sheath, four slings, that was a strip of leather with a pouch in the middle that held a stone, ten dozen bags of what felt like marbles that could be used for the slings, four packages that were filled with twenty double sided throwing knives, four 7-inch blade hunting knives with sheath. Everything was black plus everything was plain there was no designs on any of the weapons. I just looked at all of them laying around on the ground for a while before I put them all away and putting the box back into cave. I did not know how to use any of them; I could use the bow and arrows a little but not a lot and I could not hit anything. Well this gave me something to do, I could learn how to throw knives use a sling and get better at shooting an arrow. The swords are the only weapon that I could not learn to use since it takes two people to learn how to sword play.

So now I had two boxes one with weapons another with clothes. I went back to the ledge outside the den; I need to find something to eat since I had spent most of the morning jogging and looking through the boxes and had not eaten since noon yesterday. I started to head down the hill when something caught my eye; there was a little black bag on the ground where I had been looking through the boxes. It was tied by a black string going through holes and pulled tight. I untied the bag and opened it to find a small hair brush with six packs of small braid rubber bands, all of them were plain black. I smiled it had been a while since my hair has been up and with it just above my butt it was almost always in my way now. I took the time to brush out my hair and put it into two braids before I put the little bag back into the box with the clothes. I now started out to see if I could find some food, the sun was high in the sky now but it was worth the time I had took to up my hair up now I could run around in the forest without my hair getting caught in the branches or getting sticks, leaves, or anything else you could get in your hair while running in the woods.

It was getting dark when I got back to the den; my search for food had taken me beyond the territory that I had been to so far. It was all for nothing there was no more berries to find, and the temperature had started to get colder at noon even now it was still going down. I shivered and looked toward the box of clothes I walked over and took out all of the suits; I started to try them on. The third one I put on fit almost perfectly, it was just an inch big but I figured that would have to do for now. I put the other suits back in the box. As soon as the last suit was in the box the last light disappeared, I put the suit on but left it unzipped I was a little cold but not that cold. The suit seemed to have been made for cold weather because it was really warm and after an half hour of having it on I decided to take it off, I was just getting too hot with it on so that night I went to sleep shivering, but for me shivering was better than sweating also I slept easier and longer when I was cold then when I was hot.

When the sun began to come up if found me by a stream at the edge of what I now came to think of as my backyard, all of the places that I have been to or that it only took about an hour of walking from the den, my backyard is the area where I have been collecting berries for the past month. Now I'm going to try to see if I could find more berries outside of my backyard, I planned to be back at the den before the sun goes down. I started out looking everywhere there could be berries, by noon I was shivering, thinking that the sun would warm the island I had left the suit at the den. Instead of getting warmer the temperature had continued to drop now I could see my breath and anywhere water had sat still there was a thin layer of ice around the edges. I wanted to keep looking but I could not feel my feet or my hands, they had gone numb from the cold that was getting even colder, and it was causing me to stumble already I had quite a few bruises and scratches from falls. So I turned around and headed straight for the den, after a few minutes I began to jog trying to get my feet warm. It worked, after an hour of jogging I began to get warmer and could move faster. It did not take as long as I thought it would to get back to the den the sun was still high in the sky, as soon as I made it to the den I went inside and grabbed the suit, which I had folded and put inside the big box, and jumped into it I left it unzipped not wanting to get too hot. It was cold in the den, not as cold as outside but that was because of the wind that had just started blowing an hour or so ago, and wished that I had a fire. I looked at the boxes and thought that maybe I had missed something and began going through them again. I had missed nothing in the big box even though I looked for any little thing that I could have missed and found nothing. In the smaller box I almost missed the little bag that was stuffed into one corner as I picked it up it felt hard and like a square, it looked like the same bag that the hair brush and rubber band were in. I opened it to find six flint blocks, magnesium fire starters, they were silver blocks of something, flint I think, that you shaved some of the silver stuff off and then you hit the black round roll with a knife and it would give off a spark that would make the silver stuff become a fire. I had never made a fire before but with the flint blocks it should not be too hard all I needed now was wood.

I went back outside and gathered up wood, first small sticks but then I went for the bigger stuff that would keep burning for a while. The sun was going down when I stopped gathering wood, the wind had been picking up speed and it looked like a storm was coming in. I had gathered wood until it seemed like I would not have enough light to start a fire, I hurried to get the fire going putting a handful of leaves down that would catch fire easily then I had small stick to put on it until I could put the bigger log like branches, which I had broken to smaller pieces, on. Using one of the hunting knives I tried to start a fire, it took three tries to get a fire going. I had put it back in between the den and the cave so that the wind would not blow it out, a little hole in the roof of the den let the smoke out so that I would not have to breathe it in. As soon as the fire was big enough I left to get more wood, it was dark out but I had a feeling that I needed more wood. So I kept going back out into the wind and darkness to get wood, all night long and the next day I kept gathering wood. By the time darkness came again I was hungry and took a break to make a run to a stream to get a quick drink before gathering wood again, by this time I had the whole den full of wood with only a small path going back to the cave which also had wood stacked around the walls. When it started raining that night I had both the den and the cave full to the brim with wood, the only space that was left was the fire, the boxes, and a space for me to lie down and go to sleep alone with a path from the den to the cave. Within three hours of the rain starting it had turned into snow and into a blizzard the temperature had dropped still more and was still dropping. I was shivering and numb with cold from being outside collecting wood in the cold, it did not take long for me to warm up by the fire and the two days and the night that I had spent getting the wood crept up on me. Warmed by the fire and exhausted from the work it did not take long before I was asleep.

I woke up cold and shivering, a look around showed that my fire had gone down and was just red embers. I grabbed a stick and blew on the embers causing them to become redder. I broke the stick into small pieces and put them on top of the embers and blew gently on them, after a little bit I had a fire going again. Now that I was up and the fire was going the shivering became calmer. I walked over to the opening of the den just to find that the wind was still blowing and the opening was half blocked by snow. If I had a cup or a pot I could melt the snow but I did not have anything that could hold water or snow to turn into water. I would have to go find a stream to drink from. I was thirsty and wanted water the last few days I have been working and not had the time to drink like I had when I was berry picking. My suit was zipped up and would hopefully keep me warm, I had to get water or I would die. The storm seemed to be getting worse by the minute I could not see five feet in front of me. There was no way I could go get water and make it back to the den, I would get lost in the storm and have very little chance of making it out alive. I looked at the snow; I would have to eat the snow for water. I knew that you should not eat snow it used up your energy or something like that, but right now I have little choice in the matter. It was either eat the snow for water or die of thirst, so I ate the snow. I ate as much as I could stand then headed back to the fire to get warm. Eating snow had caused me to get cold both inside and outside. There was nothing else to do, I would get up ever so many hours to eat snow then get warm by the fire again. There was no way to tell if it was night or day, it did not take long for the opening of the den to get filled up with snow. Every time I went to eat snow I would dig out a hole to let air in. I do not know how long it was I did not have anywhere to mark the days, which I did not know what was day and what was not, I would wake up eat some snow dig a hole get warm by the fire eat a few berries eat more snow dig a new hole get warm and go to sleep just to repeat again when I woke next.

Each time I looked out the hole it was to see snow blowing. It was so cold that I put on another suit over the one I had on, I did not make the fire too big not because I did not want to burn all the wood inside the cave and den but because I did not know how long the storm would last. This was winter I was sure. I did not understand how one day I'm sweating just by stand in the shade and then two days later I'm in a blizzard freezing to death. I could not feel my feet or my hands and when I walked I stumbled around like a baby just learning how to walk. Each breath I took I could feel the cold working to get inside and when I blew out I could see the smoke it made, the fire kept me just warm enough to keep me alive and just a hair away from getting sick and from having frostbite. Little by little my wood disappeared into the fire, my berries were eaten, and my strength was taken away in little sips. Soon I was left with just the snow to eat, having eaten all of the berries, and the fire for warmth. A while after my last berry was eaten I placed my last stick on the fire and slipped into sleep I did not think that I would wake up, is the last thing that went through my mind as darkness claimed me.

I heard the rain and birds, but no matter what I did I could not open my eyes. Water I thought there will be water in the stream the storm is over. I then opened my eyes and pushed myself to my feet. I took two steps just to fall to my knees, I wanted to give in to just lay there and let the darkness take me once more. But my throat was dry and I was thirsty. The stream was not that far, I stood up again and made it to the den's door. There I look out into the rain then took the plunge and walked to the nearest stream bed that had been empty. Now it was overflowing, I dropped to my knees and took a handful of the water I drank it down. It felt good after eating snow; I drank my fill then laid on my back letting the ice cold rain fall on my face. Realizing for the first time that I was cold and enjoys the feeling, for the longest time I had felt nothing that feeling something was amazing. I watched the sky and saw the moon picking out, it was a full moon. The same moon that I had looked at right before the storm, which meant that I had been in the den for a whole month, a month of heat, summer, a month of cold, winter, so it would get hot now and stay hot for a month then get cold for a month. I smiled at the thought, and let my eyes close. I was so tired from the walk and from not being able to get warm, I felt the darkness take over giving my body a way to regain its strength that it had been losing over the past two months and the time I was on the life raft. I never felt the hands that picked me up or heard the laugh that came from the guard that had taken me from my home in the first place.


	5. Caught

I woke up to my back aching; I tried to rub it with my hand just to find out that I could not move either of them or feel them. I looked around to find that I was at the edge of a little meadow, a look up toward the sky showed my hands were tied by rope to a tree branch high above my head. I was hanging from the branch by the ropes, which have cut of the blood flow to my hand and caused them to go numb, stretched out with my arms above my head. I pushed up with my feet so that I was standing using my own power and letting some of the pressure off my hands. I looked around some more and then I found the camp; there was a fire with a pot over it and a tent. I could not see anyone but that did not mean there was no one around the camp was behind me to the right, the tree that I was tied to was behind me and blocked my view of anything that went beyond tent and to the left of it the fire was right outside the door to the tent which was facing in a way that anyone inside of it could see me without me seeing them.

The wind had been blowing toward the camp but now it changed and was blowing toward me. I could smell the smoke from the fire and what was cooking. It smelled like some kind of chicken, ramen noodle chicken soup that was what it smelled like. My older sister loved ramen chicken soup. I smiled a little as I remembered one day when we were home alone and had gotten hungry…..

"I'm hungry. When is mom coming home?" I asked. I and my sisters were playing with our toy horses. Breakfast was a long time ago or that is how it seemed.

"Just wait a little longer. Mom said she would be back in a bit."

"But I'm hungry now." I complained.

"Fine I'll make you something" she said getting up from the floor and heading toward the kitchen. I got up and went after her, like always I did not feel safe without one of my sisters in the same room and my little sister was with mom. Once we were in the kitchen my older sister got the ramen put the noodles into a dish with water, and then put the dish into the microwave for a few minutes. She then put it on the table and gave me a fork. "There you happy now?" she asked me. I looked at the ramen and looked back at her. She glared at me before rolling her eyes. "Just eat it. It's good." I poked at the noodles with the fork making my older sister laugh and shake her head before walking away ….

I had been so picky with who I talked to and what I ate back then. It had taken me a long time before I would try new foods and more time before I would go anywhere without someone I had known for years. I felt the pinch of my stomach from not eating anything that would make a whole meal for over two months, and having the smell of the soup just a few feet away was not helping it was just making it worse. My whole body was hurting. My back and shoulders from being in one place for so long, my arms from supporting my weight, and my wrists from the ropes biting into my skin. It did not take long for my hands and legs to add to the count, although after a time my hands quit hurting have come all the way awake. I wondered who had done this and why, but with nobody around to ask I just stood there ignoring my aching body. Pain seemed to be part of my life a lot now a broken hand, skinned legs and throat, freezing in a cave, burning alive in a hot summer month, and almost drowning to death. Have rope burn seemed like have a splinter a really, really little splinter compared to what I had had to deal with so far, it just made me think how much more will I have to suffer before I can get home. At that moment the sky which had been gray with clouds opened and let loose. I shivered as the rain soaked through my clothes, I had been fine before it started raining, but now with the rain it seemed colder. I looked down to see that someone had lifted my tank so that I looked like I had a sports bra on instead of a tank. There was nothing that I could do about it so I tried not to think about it, I hated being in close fitting clothes and showing skin any skin made me feel exposed and nervous.

Hours seemed to pass with nobody showing up. The rain kept coming down making me cold, something that I could ignore I have gotten better at taking being cold since for the last month I have been nothing but cold. The weather seem to be warming up, and in a few hours I was grateful for the rain to keep me cool from the heat that seemed to make this island a oven. After a while I began to nod of jerking back awake when my legs would give out from under me, until I just could not get the energy to get make to my feet. I just hung there for awhile before I began to slip into sleep.

I woke up to pain exploding from the left side of my lower back; I sucked in a breath but could not scream. I got my feet under me so that I was standing instead of hanging. The skin and muscles in my lower back moved when I stood up causing my left lower back to hurt all the more, but with the movement came a different feeling. My skin and muscles did not move right they seemed to be stretching over something. I turned my head and found a sword sticking out of my lower back and still holding it was the guard who seemed to like it when I was in pain. Ice cold fear ran through me at the smile on his face. I could not look away something inside of me told me that if I did it would be worse than if I was looking right at him. Something changed in his eyes, in his stance, and for some reason I was not scared of him anymore. He had me and he was going to do whatever he wanted, there was nothing that I could do about it. I was not strong I was not fast or skilled, but something inside of me went cold with fear and then had turned into a cold heat. I did not understand what I was feeling. Maybe I was angry, afraid, or a mixture of both. All I know was that I was calm. It was like I knew I was going to make it out of there and I would keep living no matter what he did to me. He glared at me then smiled a little bit more before twisting the sward and jerking it sideways out of my back. I felt the pain he had caused me but for some reason I could not scream, I just looked at him like he was not even there, then I turned my head so that I was facing out to the meadow.

I could feel my blood running down my back along with the rain. The guard took his sword and cut open my back. He ran his blade from the base of my neck all the way down through his first cut and down still further. He stopped where my shorts were and pulled them down so that my bottom half was naked. He had cut through my tank and it was just hanging on me by the right shoulder strap now. He then continued with his second cut slicing through skin and muscle down my left hip and stopped at my knee. He came in front of me then, but his smile disappeared when he saw that my expression had not changed. Outside I looked like I was in an empty room with nothing to do and slightly mad at someone, but in the inside I was screaming and cry and begging for him to leave me alone. I wanted to scream at him and crawl into a ball and do something, anything to make the pain go away, but it was like someone else had control over my body someone who did not feel the pain and despair that I was going through.

He seemed mad that I had not cried out or shown any of the pain that I was going through. He paid me back by cutting into my right side the same way he did the left. When he got nothing out of me he started on my front. He cut me just below my collarbone all the way across my body, and then he made an X going from my shoulders to the opposite hip. He then made a cut an inch or so above my belly button and another one below it each touching my back before stopping. I was coated in blood and feeling light headed from blood loss, the guard looked really pissed but seemed to be worried for some reason. He walked behind me and then cut me loose with his knife. I just stood there letting my hand fall to my sides.

"Tell your friend that we will kill them until there are only ten of you left." he growled at me before walking away. I waited until he was out of sight before falling to me knees, but that same someone or thing that had kept me from screaming would not let me rest. I stood up and began walking away from the meadow; each step I took was like getting cut all over again but instead of them being done one at a time they were being done all at one time. All of a sudden I did not feel safe, it was like that someone that had been controlling me was trying to protect me and I was not listening but for some reason now I could hear that someone loud and clear, and she was telling me that the guard was still around and might change his mind about letting me go. This someone was me I realized, it was my inner self that everyone has but does not listen to. It was my wild self and my animal instinct all mixed into one, now I let myself go. I began to run; the pain was just a signal telling me that I was hurt other than that it meant nothing to me now. All that mattered right now was getting some kind of weapon and learning how to use it so that I could defend myself.

I headed inland without realizing it until I was at the base of the mountains that seemed to be the middle of the island. I stopped to look at them and see where I could get inside where, hopefully, there are no people there to hurt me. There I would hopefully heal and then find a way to get off this island and back home. I had grabbed my black leather suit on the way out of the meadow, which the guard had left laying on the ground by the tree, I put it on now. Even though I was more animal than human right now I still did not like being naked, it would be hot with the suit on but it would have to do for now until I could get back to my den and put on a tank and shorts. I could have hit myself as a saw my shorts laying there on the ground, I could have grabbed them and what was left of my tank but my mind had been on getting away. I pushed the thoughts away I had to get moving again, I felt how weak I was from blood loss and did not know how much longer I could keep going but I knew that I had to keep moving or risk getting caught again.

I had just gone two steps when I saw it coming right for me. It was a wolf, but unlike any other wolf this one was seven feet tall. It towered over me and would stand over a fully grown man. It was white with a gray thrown over top of it like a blanket. I did not wait around to see what it would do, it was already trotting toward me, and so I jumped in to a run right into the mountains. It did not take long before I was running up steep hills and leaving trees behind. Soon rocks were popping up and getting bigger, it did not take long before I was out of breath and looking up at cliffs. I did not know how to climb a mountain, but luckily I did not have to. I found a place where two mountains had left a sort of valley in-between them that would let me get in. At the entrance to the valley I stopped. I did not really like that there was little room to get away if someone decided to trap me here, but my instincts told me that there was a way out at the other end and a way to get to a safe haven of sorts. I did not know how I knew I just knew that there was a safe place inside the mountains. I just had to get to it. A look behind me let me know that the wolf was still flowing me, but for some reason I did not feel afraid of this wolf. I looked at the sky; it was still raining, which was gray. I could not tell if it was getting darker or lighter I guess it really did not matter. I started to walk into the valley, and then picked up a jog. Just because I was not scared of the wolf did not mean I wanted it to get too close.

I kept moving. Hours passed, I could feel my strength slipping away with each step but I still jogged jumping over logs when I was in woods climbing up little rock cliffs when I came to them always moving always jogging when I could. Darkness took over but by then I was too tired to care, although the day it had rained. It had not stopped raining since winter started. It would pour so hard that you could not see anything two inches in front of you, and then it would turn into a soft sprinkle. Hard or soft the rain never let up, and after spending the whole day in it, it did not bother me anymore. The sky turned into a gray singling the sun's presence once more. I did not stop even though my body begged me to, and when I could not jog anymore I walked. My cuts had scabbed over, some of them breaking here and there from my movements, they did not hurt me as much and while the wild me was still in the back of my mind I was more human now the animal. The wolf had stopped trailing me and I was starting to feel the pressure of having to move lift. I had been moving for two days and a night, but I still felt like I was just not far enough away yet. I pushed myself to keep moving through the night, and when the sky was gray again I was more than willing to stop.

I looked around, trying to find a place to stay the night. I started going up a hill in the valley I was in, I did not know if it was the valley that I had first walked into with the wolf hot on my heals or if it was a different one. The valley looked like it was a dead end and I was at the end of it and going up the hill that led to a high mountain peak that was up in the clouds somewhere. I kept climbing even though my eyesight was starting to blur and my leg threatened to give out on me. At the base of the mountain a little above where the green grass turned it rock was a hidden cave, I do not know how I found it, and it looked like my den down by the lake the only difference was that my stuff was not here. It was even split into two rooms, I went into the back room and laid down before I fell down I was asleep before my body was all the way on the ground.

I woke up to darkness. A look around told me nothing about where I was, all I could see was that I was inside a cave. There was a doorway leading into a different room or to outside. I got to my feet, my whole body throbbing, bring with it the memories of what had happened over the last few days. I looked outside to find that it was still raining. I had a feeling that it would be days before it stopped. I went back inside to really look at the two rooms that made up the cave. They were both bigger than my den's rooms were. I could set up a target in here and practice with the throwing knives, sling, and the bow and arrows. But before I did that I would have to find my way back to my den, and I had no clue as to where I was on the island or where my den was, I only knew that my den was by the lake and the cave, that I'm in right now, is in the mountains. I looked down at the valley, it looked like a good place to live, and I could see the entrance to the valley and see if anyone was coming into my valley from the cave. I took a jog around the valley, and found fruit trees apple, peach, and pear I also found what looked like to be berry patches and a strawberry field. Everything was starting to grow. The trees were getting there blossoms and things were turning green. It would be a while before things were ripe to eat so I had time to look for my den.

It took me two days to find my way out of the mountains, it was noon and would only take me an hours run to get back to my cave so I decided to keep going. Three hours later I arrived at the meadow where I had been carved up by the guard. I stayed in the tree. I was not scared of the meadow itself but of what might be in the meadow or around it. The guard's camp was gone, but I still waited for a minute before going up to the tree where I had been hung from. I looked around on the ground, and it did not take long before I found what I was looking for. I had left my suit at the cave; it was just too hot for me to be wearing it. I slipped into the shorts and tank that I had been wearing before I was caught by the guard. The tank had been cut but it could still be worn the left shoulder strap had been cut as well as the left back, but at least it covered my front. It would have to do for now until I got to my den.

I had been weak when I started my trip to the mountains. It had taken me days to get to my cave, while now it would only take about two hours of running. I was still weak but I had gained some of my strength back. I might not make it back to my den tonight but if I could at least find some land that I had gone through on my search for food last summer I might be able to find my way back to my den. I do not think that the guard would have taken me far away from where he had found me, and he had found me in the middle of my backyard. Not sure which way to go I just started walking. It did not look like any place I had been to. I kept on walking, and it kept on raining. I was hungry after not being able to eat for so long and looked for food on the way. It did not take me long before I had found some fresh blackberries. It seemed anywhere on this island you could find berries if you just looked for them. When night came, the sky getting black, I found a stand of trees that would keep most of the rain off of me and lay down to get some sleep. It took a few hours for me to fall asleep and when I did it was only for a few hours, but it was enough to let me feel refreshed and get me enough energy to keep going.

It took me a week to find my den backyard; it was in the morning when I found the stream that looked like a waterfall that was spread out over half a mile long with what looked like steps making the waterfall. I took off at a run and was at my den in two hours and a half. I stopped to get a drink before going up to the den, when I got into my den I found it the same way I had left it as before I had gotten caught. I took everything out of both boxes and put half of the stuff in the big box and the other half inside the little box. I felt rushed like something was coming and it was not good, so I buried the big box in the back room of the den. Once it was buried I grabbed the small box and took off running up the hill, I had not taken the time to change my clothes, I had taken time to tie my tank so that it would not open up and show off my front, I had just cut a holes beside the cut and used the cut strap to sew it back up to keep it closed. I had just gotten to the top of the hill and turned around to look at this place one last time, I did not know if I was going to come back or not, and that is when I saw him. He was the nice boy that had helped me on the life raft. He looked wild now, his hair had been cut short the first time I had seen him now it was long and clinging to his neck while his blue eyes held mine. They were bright blue, a kind that you could not miss, and wild just like the wolf that I had seen. In all he looked like the kind of boy that would be the most popular guy in school, the kind that went into a room and came out with like all the girls begging him to be there boyfriend. But there was more to him then that he looks wild, like not crazy wild, but like in the movies were the lead character has that look where nobody wants to get in there way like they are scary kind of wild, he looked downright dangerous.

He kept looking at me just standing there looking right into my eyes. I started to wonder what was wrong with me, I was not pretty, I was not the kind of girl that he would want to take out, my hair was a usually red, ranging from strawberry blond to red, red to brown red, but with the rain it was laying flat in the two braids and was dark like dark brown looking with red highlights, when dry my hair was red and was a frizz ball not very pretty at all. My eyes were just average dark brown; my tank had dried blood on it and looked a mess. My shorts did not cover all of my legs, so I had two dark lines, which were dried blood, going down the outside of both of my legs all the way down to my knee. My tank did not cover the entire cut below by collarbone either. I did not look beautiful I looked like a mess, a wet mess. There was no way he was looking at me like he would the popular girl, he was probably looking at me and thinking that I was the ugliest person there was. At that moment the wind shifted bring with it the sound of other people talking.

"All we have to do I find everybody else that is on this island and kill them. Then we can get home." Someone said.

"Yeah. I'm good with that. What is he doing?" Another asked.

"Cody thought that he heard something." The first one answered. I froze as I heard them talking. They were going to kill everybody just to get home. This was turning into the Hunger Games. I could hear them moving around in the wood, sticks snapping leaves moving until they came out of the woods into the area just below my den.

"What's up man?" The first guy that came into sight said. It was his voice that I had heard tell the others that they just needed to kill everybody else on the island. He was the leader; I knew it just from how he was out front and was the first to talk. He had blond hair that looked darker than it really was in the rain with green eyes. Move! My mind screamed at me. Get out of there before they see you! For some reason I could not move, I could not get it past my ears that these people would kill others just to get home. The others, there were ten of them altogether, came around behind the leader and the kid who was nice to me. He's one of them. The leader had come up to him and clapped him on the shoulder like they were good friends. "What is it man? What are you looking at?" The leader of the pack asked before looking up and right at me. A slow smile climbed on to his face, his eyes lit up with something that I had never seen before. I knew, I just knew, that he was going to kill me and enjoy every second of it, I can't tell you how I knew I just knew. One look at the rest of them and I could see that they had hunted down and killed other people before, and I was there next target. "Good job man you did it again." The leader said clapping his second in command again on the shoulder. The boy who had helped me had been the one to find their targets; he was the one who was second to the leader. My eyes came to rest on his blue eyes and I saw in them the sadness and guilt that it had been him who had lead this pack of blood hungry killer to me, he had not wanted to I realized as I saw how sorry he was that he had lead them to me. I knew, just like I knew that this pack would kill me if they got their hands on me, that he would not be joining this hunt or any other hunt that had a helpless human as the pray. They all had weapons some had bows others had swords, and there had to be throwing knives and slings in there as well and they all knew how to use them I could see it in their eyes.

They just stood there, the lower one in the pack looking from me to their leader and back waiting for a single that would let them start the chase. In my mind I retraced my steps back to my cave in the mountains, it would take me two days of running all day and most of the night to get there. I marked all of the places where I could hide from them. It all took five seconds for me to lay out a plan of travel, then I turned around and took off at a flat run going down the back of the hill where my den was if the boys went around the hill they will find that they had wasted time you could only get to the back of my den's hill from the back the sides were protected by a maze of gullies that you could get lost in. I heard there whoops and shouts of joy at being in a chase, a chase that I just might not make it out of alive.


	6. Trapped

As soon as I hit the bottom of the hill I headed down a gully that headed toward the mountains. I kept running, jumping over logs ducking under low tree branches. I moved from gully to gully, most of them full of water which made slow going. I made good progress making it out of my backyard in three hours. The rain covered any tracks that I might have left, I did not see any more of the pack but I knew that they were hunting and would not leave my den until they had caught someone. I had to get back to my cave; it would be the best place to be. Nobody that I knew of would run into the mountains when you are stranded on an island, but when you have a group of people hunting others then anything could happen. I was just coming out of a gully; I had stayed in the valleys and gullies and stayed away from the tops of hill that might give me away to the pack, when they spotted me. I had not seen them or heard them until they made a charge, coming down from a hill that was across from where I was coming out of the gully. There they could have watched me during the last five minutes of my walk down the gully. One look was all I needed. I took off at a dead run, this pack was different from the one that was around my den but it was just as deadly. That meant that it was a free for all hunting fest with anyone they came across being fair game. I did not really know this part of the island, had no reason to get familiar with it, now I wished I knew the whole island.

With no clue as to where to go I just went with the land, going in a straight line when I could, heading straight toward the mountains and my cave. This pack knew the land though and used it. They kept on me no matter what I did. I had come out of the gully and went in to a flat forest; there was no hills no gullies nowhere to hide. I tried getting back to my backyard back to the hills and gullies that I knew where the hiding place where, but every time I got close another group seemed to cut me off. I kept moving, running most of the time, by dark I was nowhere close to the mountains it seemed like I was getting farther away from them. I was starting to get mad. This was supposed to be easy, get in and get out but it had turned into a hunting fest with me as the prey. I had been running all day long and I was getting tired. I could feel my wild self start to get calm and quiet just like when the guard was cutting me up. I tried one more time to get into the hilly woods, as I neared the first slope I stopped and looked around. I felt a chill run up my spine and knew someone was there somewhere on that hill just watching for a person to try their luck in the hills. I began to make my way away from the hill trying to be as quiet as I could. I was barefoot and it helped me for awhile, that is until I stepped into a trap. It was one of the ones that makes a loop around your legs and pulls you up so that you are hanging from a tree. One second I was walking on the ground and the next I was hanging from a tree by my foot. I had dropped my box when the trap had started to pull me up into the air; luckily it had not broken open but it was too far away for me to be able to reach it. I could hear branches breaking a telling sign that someone, most likely a hunter, was on their way. I pulled my upper body into a crunch letting me reach up toward my foot that had the rope around it, but as much as I tried I could not get the rope off my foot. It was hard to just touch the rope let alone get it undone. My whole body was on fire from the torture and then from my running around trying to stay free, well it looked like I was caught, again, and I might not get away with the footsteps coming closer. I tried one more time to get the rope off my leg, a failed attempt.

The first thing that I saw was legs and feet then shorts a tank and dangerous blue eyes with wild hair above them. He did not move he just stood there looking down at me while I was looking up at him. For some reason I was not really afraid of him, it was more like I was afraid of the people that were around him. I could feel blood running down my leg from a rope burn that had gone deeper than just the first layer of skin. It was just one more pain to add to the list, just a little more pain to be ignored. I looked away from him, and looked toward the hill that I had been trying to get away from. Had it been him that I had sensed on the hill or was it someone else that was still up on the hill or watching us? I closed my eyes and tried to sense if anyone else was around. I heard a footstep, which I was getting good at detecting over the rain, close and one farther away. I opened my eyes to find that the guy, who had been nice to me on the raft and found me in the trap, had found my box and had taken a step toward it while a look around showed nobody that I could see. I began to get nervous; I did not like not being able to see someone. My nerves began to turn into a flight response, I wanted away from here and I wanted to be gone right now! The boy, who looked more like a teenager now then a boy, looked at me from where he was by the box with a question on his face. Up to now I had just stayed still but now with someone else lurking around I had only one thought on my mind and that was Survive. That meant getting out of this trap. Right now! I did not care if this guy thought that I did not want him looking in my box, he was moving away from my box, or that it was him that I wanted to get away from. I just wanted to get away to a place where I could have something at my back and at least a chance of fighting. I pulled my upper body back up so that I could get at the rope again, pulling desperately at it trying to get it loose enough to get my foot out of the lope.

"Hey, it's OK. I'm not going to touch your box." He said. I ignored him and kept trying to get the rope off my foot. "I'm not going to hurt you." I kept on working on the rope. "OK let me help you get down then." He walked over to where there was a rope tied to a tree. I kept working on the rope working it faster and faster, getting more and more worked up. Panic began to rise in me, with the panic anger and frustration began to make an appearance as well. A tear slid out of my eye, a telling of mine that I was really getting emotional. I was ready to scream from pure anger, my fear and panic was long gone replaced with a white hot anger mixed with a cold burn anger that would last for a long time while the white hot anger would be like an explosion when my temper blows. I gave one more pull on the rope; when that did not work I almost blow right and there. Tears were running down my face a scream was building up in my throat, I was just about to release my scream when I felt the rope give a foot or two and then jerk tight again. I looked over to see that the boy who had helped me before was helping me again; he was holding the rope that he had just untied. He then began to lower me to the ground, once there I pulled the rope off my foot. "That does not look good." He said when he walked over to where I had just pulled the rope off my foot.

I jumped to my feet grabbed my box and his hand and started to walk away, I would have took off at a run but the kid/teen did not seem to feel the danger that was coming closer with every second that was wasted. I did not give him any chance to talk I just grabbed his hand and then pulled him after me, first at a walk then a jog then a run, until I could feel eye looking around for me. I found what I wanted within two steps, and I leaped for it pulling the already off balanced kid with me. I landed on the ground in mud with a tree root, with a hole near the ground that I could look out at the trap from, between me and the trap and the other person coming to check on the trap, I had pulled the kid/teen down with me and when he was down behind the root and out of view I put a hand over his mouth before he could say anything. For some reason whenever he was around me he tended to talk and right now I needed quiet, or I might be caught or both of us if it was not one of his pack as I liked to call them. I could feel him tensing up, for both of us to stay out of sight we had to be close together like touching each close. We were touching from the shoulder to our hips with our legs just a hair away from touching on my right side and his left with my left hand over his mouth, all I wanted to do was shove him five feet away from me and from his tense body he was thinking the same thing, but if either of us moved we would both be caught and from what I could see of the guy he was not from my raft buddy's pack. I really need to find something to call him.

The guy who had come to see the trap had black hair with orange dyed strands here and there. The kid next to me took a breath and a look at him showed that he was looking out of the hole at the guy who was checking the trap and looked a little bit ticked. I took my hand away from his mouth but taped my one finger against his chin to get his attention, it worked he turned his head to look at me. His face was an inch from mine, his eyes wide with something that I did not have a name for. I put my finger to my mouth in a sign for him to be quiet; I then turned my attention back to the guy looking at the trap. He was making a circle around the trap looking for any tracks that could be found, if we did not get out of here we would get caught, and with the rain just a fine mist he would find them. I taped the kid beside me on his shoulder to get his attention; he had not taken his eyes off of me since I had taped his chin, then I pulled my legs underneath me getting ready to move. From the corner of my eye I saw him getting his legs underneath him and when he was ready to move I looked to make sure that the orange haired kid was busy looking for tracks or trying to make sense of them. When I was sure that he was not going to look around and see us I tape the shoulder next to me again, then grabbed my box and took off at a quick walk trying to keep trees and brush between us and orange hair. After five minutes of walking I started to jog, I wanted to get away from here and try to get to some place safe or safer than I was right now with a whole free for all hunt.

My life raft buddy kept up with me but after only ten minutes he was out of breath and needed a break. I slowed down to a walk to let him get his breath back; it took more than five minutes for him to get his breath back. I wondered how he could have made it here and not be able to run for at least a half hour. With some thought I came up with an idea that it was his pack that had made life easy enough that he did not need to really go anywhere for food or anything else so he was not really in shape without being out of shape, anyone looking at him would say that that he was fit that is anyone in a school here he was out of shape. In my opinion he would have been better off without his pack. I started jogging again, much to my shadow's despair, this time I did not stop until after twenty minutes had past and then only because it looked like he was going to pass out. After an hour of stop and go jogging we came to a stream, I right off took a drink while Shadow, that is what I decided to call him because he was following me like a shadow when he could go back to his pack, looked at the stream then looked at me with a question on his face.

"You just drink from a stream?" He asked. I nodded my head once and then began to walk off. "Hay! Wait a second. How can you just keep moving?" He kept talking telling me how tired he was and hungry, I just ignored him and when he finally got a drink I then started off at a walk since it seemed like the only gate that Shadow could keep without stopping for any amount of time. Once we got started he quit talking and put his energy into walking. After three hours of walking I noticed that Shadow was looking around and seemed to relax more, it looked like we were in Shadow's backyard. After half an hour I heard people taking, three feet more and I could see a tent. I stopped at the sight of the tent; Shadow did not share my unease of tents or people and kept on walking. It took him a few seconds to realize that I was not following him. "Come on my camp is not far, and we have food there if you want some." I shook my head at him then made a shooing motion with my left hand, trying to get him to go back to his pack. He looked back at his camp and I took off at a run and had five different trees between me and him by the time he looked back at where I had been. Just looking at him I could see that that he had a puzzled expression on his face, then someone must have called him because he called something back, that I could not make out, and then started off toward his packs camp. I head back toward the mountains at a run, it was getting dark and I was tired but so would everybody be so if I ran in the night I might just get somewhere.

I ran all night with only two rest stops at streams to get water; I never know where I would find water next so whenever I could I always stopped for water. When the woods started to get lighter I started to look for a place to wait out the day, I found it by a stream which was a good bonus. In the bank, which was bigger than it looked, there was quite a few dens some bigger than others, I picked one of the lesser liker ones that someone would look into and settled in for the day after I had my fill of water and some of the berries that were nearby. Now all I had to do was stay hidden until dark comes again, which I was getting good at detecting. I woke up as the sun was going down, not that you could see the sun, but the light that did make it through the clouds was getting darker by the second. I climbed out of the stream bed and started out at a jog toward the mountains. I did not see anyone the four nights it took me to get back to my cave in the mountains. It did not take me long to find a spot to hide my box, with that done all I needed to do was put food up for the winter. On my way to my cave I saw that most of the trees were full of fruit and ready to be picked, the back room of the cave was cooler than the front and would make a good place to store the apples, peaches, pears, and berries that I would need for the winter.

I did not was any time. I took one of the slings out of the box and took the backpack, which I had been using for the last two months, and started out to gather some food and do some target practicing as well. I had gotten back to the cave around dawn and had spent some time trying to find out if anyone had gotten into any of the valleys that led to the valley where my cave was in, and as far as I could tell nobody but me has found this valley or any of the ones around it. The rain showed no sign of letting up the best weather was when it slowed to a thin mist, but other then that it was a consistent rainfall with no let up whatsoever. I looked for and picked up any rock that looked like it could be used as a sling stone or marble, since that is what had come with the slings in the first place, and put them into a little black bag that I had found on my little trip back to my den by the lake. It was not long before the pouch was full of small stones and I was picking apples, it was the first group of trees that I had come to. After twenty minutes of picking my backpack was full to overflowing, I headed back to my cave to unload. On the way to the cave I began to put stones into the sling and try to hit a tree. By the time I got to the cave I had empty the pouch, all of my shots had missed with only three coming close to the target. It took me all day long to get one hit and even then I had been like only five feet away from the target. For the rest of the summer month I gathered food and wood for the coming winter, I also practiced wherever I went. I was getting good at loading the sling and letting stones fly but when it came to hitting anything well that was a work in progress. I also explored around the mountains getting to know them like I did the backyard of my den, I also had put up a target area in the back of my cave so that I could keep practicing in the winter months that is if I lived to see them. Every time I went outside of my cave I expected to see a pack of hunter coming up my valley. When I was out and about I tried to be as quiet as possible, it was harder to keep the volume down with the sling but that could not be helped.

The rain stopped as soon as the winter started. I kept a fire going in the cave but as for me I was outside most of the time practicing with my sling. Each day I was outside with my sling until I could not feel my hands or my feet. Even them sometimes I pushed it until I was hungry then I would go in and get warm. The winter was just as cold as the last one had been, but this one did not have a storm blowing plus there was water, if you broke through the ice, in the streams. It took a month and a half for me to be able to hit anything with the sling, and even now I sometimes miss. Now along with the sling I brought a dozen of the throwing knives to practice with. The knives seemed to be easier but getting them to stick into the tree was harder than hitting the tree. This winter I had enough food and wood that I had some leftover when summer began to take over. It was easier this winter than the last one was the same with the summer. I stayed around the cave during the winter but when summer came I began to wander farther out, and was soon going deep into the mountains and spending days away from the cave at a time.

I was by a stream stopping to get a drink. I looked at a tree across the stream but instead of throwing the knife in my hand at it I turned around and throw it at one that was on my side of the stream but just as far away. I was careful with my knives I did not want to lose any of them because i only had so many and no way to get any more if i lost them all. I smiled lightly when the knife dived deeply into the tree. Lately I had been able to get them to start to stick into the trees, only about half of them went into the tree but still that was progress. I walked over to get my knife back. Soon I would start to bring out the bow and arrows and work with them, which is as soon as I get these knives to stick into the trees most of the time. I grabbed the knife and pulled it out of the tree I started back to the stream to find some more sling stones, most of the good ones where by streams and I was getting kind of low on stones. I reached the stream and was just bending over to pick up a stone when something cut me in a straight line from mid back all the way up my shoulder and over the stream. The pain was nothing new and from looking at me you would have thought that nothing had happened. I straightened up and looked across the stream at the same time to find an arrow sticking out of a tree across from me. The arrow told the whole story; someone had taken a shot at me. I turned around to see where it had come from. I felt blood slowly making its way down my back, my old cuts were all healed and now were scars this would probably make another one. When I was looking at where the arrow had come from I saw not one but a big group of people who looked like they were trying to sneak up on me. All of them had a weapon of some kind in hand, which told me that they were hunters and the shot would have been a killing one if I had been standing up instead of bending over, there was some bows and knives with only one or two with slings. I did not wait around to find out who had what weapon, I took off at a dead run heading toward the thicker forested areas. I was glad that I was at the edge of the mountain range, which meant that these people were not too deep into them yet. I could hear them coming up behind me, I tried to run faster harder but I did not seem to have anything left. Instead of going faster I was slowing down, my breathing was fine I just seemed to not be able to make my legs pump any faster. They were going to catch me if I did not get out of there; I could hear them coming closer ever so closer. Ahead of me was a gully that I could lose them in. I slid down the side and started up the other side. I got half way up when my legs collapsed from under me sending me sliding back down the hill where I landed at the bottom of the gully. No matter how much I tried to get back up I couldn't, my body would not let me. I looked down to see my legs shaking, but that was not the only thing that surprised me. My legs were nothing but skin and bone as were my arms. I lifted my tank with a trembling hand, just to see all of my ribs. I was nothing but skin and bone, I did not know why. I had been eating every day, but I looked like I had not eaten in months. I heard the hunters talking but could not really make out what they were saying. I waited for them to come down the gully and kill me, but after a few tense minutes, in which they argued with each other, they went away. I sighed and laid down to rest for a while, I had to get back to my cave and once there I would eat as much as I could and try to fill myself out so that I could run from the hunters.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing that I know I'm feeling something lightly touch my cheek before disappearing. I open my eyes and see a blur of movement. It disappears behind a tree and seems to just wait there. I think about going back to sleep but for some reason I could not get the blur out of my head. I get up slowly, not wanting to scare it, whatever it is, away, and move closer to the tree that it was hiding behind. There was nothing behind the tree, I began to look around thinking that it might have gone behind another tree but there were no more trees to hide behind. This was the only tree in the gully that I was in; there was nowhere left to hide. Was it even behind the tree? Or was it in the trees branches hiding? I turned my head and looked at the little branches on the little tree; the whole tree was only about eight feet tall. It only took me a second to find the creature that had made the blur. I blinked my eyes and rubbed a hand over them and then looked back at the same tree branch, I found the same sight as I had last time I had looked. There on the branch was a person who stood only about five inches tall, with wings just like in the movie TinkerBell.

The fairy, that is what it looks like, looked just like Vidia does. She had black hair in a ponytail with a purple shirt with on sleeves as all and with purple pants and what looked like slippers. I took a step closer so that I could really get a good look at her, which is when she decided to take off. She only went a few feet before stopping. Then she turned around and looked at me. I stood still not wanting to scare her away; this was the first sign of life on this island that was not trying to kill me. I looked around, the gully did not give me much cover and I needed a better place to hide. I could not run, I did not know if I could make it to my cave. I was a sitting duck, out in the open just waiting for someone to come alone. That would be it game over if someone found me where I was at the moment. I took one more look at the fairy then I began to make the climb up the side of the gully. I had made maybe two feet up the hill when the fairy flew into my face causing me to miss my step which caused me to lose my balance which lead to me falling and rolling back down the hill just to stop at where I had started from. I stood back and looked at the fairy, she flew toward me and turned around and flew down the gully. I started to follow her, the gully had some water in it but not that much. This last winter had been a dry one and so far it had not rained since the two month rain fest, and things were starting to dry up. Only the deep gullies had water in them up here in the mountains but down below in the plains and forests there had to be water from off the mountains, at least that is what I hoped. If not then this whole island was in for drought unless it rained soon.

I kept flowing the fairy, she lead me down the gully until it opened up to a meadow. She took me around the meadow, never really going into it more than a few feet at one time. I wondered why she did not just go straight through the meadow when she turned into the forest straight across from the gully. Just then I looked up into the sky and saw a bird flying above. It was probably a hawk or an eagle, which brought to mind that in the movies all of the fairies were, scared of big birds mostly hawks. She took me through valley after valley, it did not take long before I was tired and ready to stop but she seemed to want to get somewhere as fast as possible so I tried my best to keep up. After a whole day of walking my legs gave out on me, I tried to get up but it seemed to do no good my legs just would not move. The fairy was flying back and forth, coming to me and then back the way she wanted me to go. I tried to talk to tell her that I could not go any farther but I could not make the words come up my throat, I could not seem to move even a finger. My eyes began to blur, I could not see straight it was like the whole world was turned upside down and then it was up onto its side then back the way it was meant to be but only for a second before it was back on one side. I began to close my eyes when I felt something touch my cheek again. I opened my eyes to find the whole gang from TinkerBell. Vidia, Fawn, SilverMist, Rosetta, Iridessa, and TinkerBell, all of them where there hovering over me. Each one of them had something in there hands. Vidia was the first to come close enough for me to really be able to see what it was, it turned out to be a berry of some kind. She handed it to me trying to give it to me and I was just able to get the energy to lift my hand a take it from her. She made a motion as if eating something so I ate the berry. The others all did the same thing until I had eaten a berry from every one of them. After a few minutes energy seem to come out of nowhere. I was able to get up and keep going.

They lead me through valleys and over passes that I did not know about. It took four days to get where they were going and when I got there all I could do was slide to the ground, just barely away from falling to the ground, and slip into sleep. I did not see all of the other fairies that came to see what Tink had brought to their home or hear their excited voices as they began to work on me trying to keep me alive and to bring me back from the very edge of death.


	7. The Monster Inside

I was sitting on top of one of the mountains that made a protective barrier around a valley. I did not believe where I was when I opened my eyes a year ago, I still can't believe that this place does exist, for the first time after following the fairies. That it is no story for a book but really real. Right before me was Pixie Hollow, complete with winter, fall, spring, and summer each one getting a quarter of the valley, there was the Pixie Tree in the middle of the valley. The tree was on an island in the middle of a river that seemed to go four different ways, on river for each season. Each river came from the mountains that closed that season in from the rest of the island, which I was pretty sure was NeverLand, and like normal rivers each started from little streams that ran down the mountains. The stream came together after a time and then came together again until it made up the four big rivers which in turn when back to the different seasons. In all each season was watered and from what I have seen there is never a time when water is scarce. This is where the fairies live and they seem happy here, they knew this island better than anyone else and had been teaching me.

I picked up bow that was laying beside me and started off down the mountain going away from the hollow. Even though I was welcomed there I did not feel right barging in on their home. I was a human and I just felt like I did not belong in Pixie Hollow, it was made for fairies and it should stay for the fairies, the rest of the island though, well I had nowhere else to go and the free-for-all-killing-spree was still going on. I knew because every few months I would go out to the outer island, the beaches, the forests, and anywhere outside of the mountains, and find dead bodies here and there. Over the past year I had stayed deep in the mountains only coming out of them with several fairies to act as lookouts. The first time I had gone out I had almost gotten caught but with the help from the fairy's I had found a hiding place to stay in for a few days until the hunting pack gave up and took off to find someone else. After that the fairy's decided to teach me how to survive on their home island. I came to my camp there was a fire going, it was a little low but that was OK I hardly used it anymore. I pulled out a apple from my backpack cut a hole in the top with one of my hunting knives and placed the apple on a rock that I had put by the fire for cooking. I had gotten some stuff from my cave on the way back to the Hollow on my first trip out, because of that trip I know had a bow and a dozen arrows along with my fire starter and a hunting knife. I had gotten good at all of them; I could hit most of what I aimed at.

The fairies had taught me over the last year what to eat and what not to eat. They had made sure that I could follow them and keep up as well as hide from them, I was not sure what good it did, they found me most of the time within a few minutes, but it was all a big game to me I did not see how playing hide and seek would help me but as long as I stayed in the mountains I would be fine. Everybody else seemed to be staying out of the mountains so I really did not have anything to worry about. I checked to see if the apple was done cooking; it still needed a few minutes so I took my bow and my throwing knives along with my sling and started to practice. The bow, knives, and sling were just toys to me, just like everything the fairies were teaching me. It was something to do to pass the time, when I could hit a tree almost every time with all three weapons I started to walk past the tree and see if I could hit it. From there I just kept trying to see what I could do with them. After a few minutes of practicing I went back to my camp and found my apple done and ready to eat. The hum of wings told me that a fairy was near, Vidia or maybe Speedy, I knew that it was a fast flier because the wing beats were faster than any other kind of fairy. They would be coming to start what they called training but I liked to call it play time, I started to eat my apple. When we got to playing we usually do not stop until all of us are dead tired or until someone needs something done then it's back to work for the fairy's and me trying to find something else to do with my time. The inside of the apple had turned into a mush that was like applesauce. I had just eaten a few bites when the fairy came into view. It was Vidia; she waved her hand at me which told me she wanted me to follow her. I had learned how to speak their language, but I had yet to speak to them. It was not that I did not want to, I really did want to speak to them, but for some reason every time I tried I just could not get the words past my mouth.

I nodded my head at her letting her know that I heard and understood. Then I picked up my camp, hiding all of my weapons/toys in hollow trees or in holes in the ground, banking my fire another thing they had taught me. Once everything was hidden and there was no sign, that I could see, that I had been there, all but the fire that was still burning a little bit, I turned to follow Vidia. Just to have her stop me and point out just about twenty different things that showed that I had been there. I fixed them, by that time there was a group of fairies waiting for me to get started with the game. I think they just like to pick on me, it did not seem to matter how fast I ran or where I went they seemed to be able to find me and out distance me. I came to the group and stood underneath them and to the side, I was never was in the middle of the group even here with the fairies I was shy. All of them were talking about one thing or another, I watched them from past experience I knew that they could go from talking to flying and could be gone within half a second. These games did not have a lot of talking to them, the rules were that you ran and hide if you got found and touched you were it until you could find and touched someone else. It was like the Hunger Game but instead of kill a person you just had to touch a person or fairy in this case, these games would take all day and sometimes we went into the night also.

Just out of my eye I saw the fairy move, not toward the group but away from the group. In that second the game started, I took of into the mountains while some of the other fairies when for the ones that were trying to get a head start. For a second it was mass chaos then nothing, everything was quiet nothing moved. I smiled it was the stillness of the hunt, I kept moving away from the hollow, thinking about the different hiding place that I might be able to get to before anyone got onto my trail. I was just about to come out of a gully, I had been moving at a run and did not look into the meadow I was about to go into until the last second. When I did I came to a sliding stop and hid behind a tree, there out in the meadow lying down was a pack of wolves. Each wolf would be around seven feet tall, some shorter some taller, I had found out that the wolves did not want to hurt anything or anyone I did not know anymore than that they were friends of the fairies and often joined in the games I was never told how they had come to be on the island or why they never really acted like real wolves. The wolves here acted like people, but that did not make any sense to me so I just shook it off and found a way around the wolves later I would come back and play with them.

It did not take long before one of the fairies found me. As soon as I saw who it was I took off running, it was Vidia who was behind me and she was fast one of the fastest fairy's there was. I had just caught a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye before I started running; it was all I needed to know that someone was after me. I ran through bushes around trees jumping over small streams off small cliffs that were only three to four feet tall, anything to get away from her. It was all fun I stumbled a little here and there and wished that it was summer so that I did not have to wear a suit with its boots keeping me from being able to really feel the ground and it was making me clumsy. Over the past year I had gotten used to the cold and the heat, now I could do anything in the rain or snow no matter how cold or hot it got I was still able to move around. There was certain plants that you could eat that would help you with the cold and I had used them for awhile but now I did not need them. I jumped down into a gully and then ran up the side that I had just come down from, Vidia hovered just below me in the middle of the gully looked left then right before going up the side of the gully and disappearing over the rim. I smiled and ran back up the rest of the way to the top of the gully. There I turned and followed it for a little while. I had slowed down to a walk, keeping a look out for any fairy or animal, the fairies had been know to ask other animals to join in the game before, that might be playing. I came upon a stream, but before I even took a step toward it to get a drink I felt like someone was watching me. It felt like when one of the fairy's was stalking me in the game but this was more intense, it was like whoever was stalking me was going for the kill.

As soon as that thought popped into my head I was brought back to reality, back to what was really happening out beyond the mountains. I looked around and found that I had gone farther out than I wanted to, I was at the base of the first mountains that kept everyone else away from the hollow. Cold fear ran through my blood, along with shivers running up and down my spine. I froze where I was and focused on where I was feeling the eyes on me, they were coming from across the stream. I looked over to where I thought they might be and found a person looking right at me; I did not keep my eyes on him but forced them to wander around. After I had looked around I went to the stream as I let my senses tell me if anyone else was around, I could not feel anyone else's eyes on me nor could I see anyone. So I took a drink and kept an eye on the guy who was watching me, he got up and moved to a place where he could easily attack what he did not know was that by moving to where he was now he had given me five different doors that I could escape through. I took one and went through the stream and up the bank to pass where he had first seen me, I took up a jog then doubled back and kept turning until I was certain that I had lost him.

I was just about to work my way back to the hollow when I stepped out into a meadow and came face to face with a pack of human hunters, at first neither of us moved I had been looking behind me to make double sure that nobody was following me when I had walked into the meadow. Then it was just like when the fairy's started a game, one of the hunters started running toward me. I turned and took off at a dead run just to slam into something as I came around a tree. I went down hard I tried to get up but then something was on top of me. I opened my eyes only to look into blood thirsty green ones, a smile climbed onto his mouth. It took me only a second for me to place him, he was the first hunter that I had seen, a true hunter that was out for blood and who loved killing, I could see in his eyes the triumph that he felt at finally having me in his grasp. I tried to push him off of me tried to roll over and get up, but he just laughed at me and kept me where I was. He then took out a rope and tied it around my hands so that my hands were behind my back, he had kept me on the ground using his weight and pinning me with a knee to my back. There was no hope now with my hands tied I could do nothing even if I did get away I would need my hands. I quit struggling there was no point now if they were going to kill me they would kill me there was nothing that I could do.

I was hauled up to my feet by someone then I was pushed into a stumbling walk. They headed out of the mountains, the place where I had felt safe where I had played and had been happy. Now I walked toward who knew what, but I knew that they would kill me. "Only ten will survive." The last thing that I was told on the ship kept repeating itself over and over in my head. There was only one way this would end, and it would end with me dying.

I really did not know how long it took to get to the camp or even where we went, all I could think about was that I was going to die. I was pushed down so that I was sitting before a post then they tied a rope to my tied hands and from that to the post. In somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that this is where I had left the wild blue eyed black hair guy that was on the life raft with me, when he had found me in the foot trap. Some part of me saw him come up and offer me water; he stayed with during my stay in the camp. I just stared ahead never turning my head or jumping when one of the pack tried to creep up on me and scare me. I knew everything that was going on around me; I knew where each person was. But the only thing going through my mind was that I was going to die, and it would be soon.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a punch to my stomach. It was too strong to be from any of the pack. I looked up and there standing over me was the guard. I a flash I remembered all of the pain he had caused me. Behind and to the side was the blond with green eyes boy, he was looking over some boxes. Right beside him was the guy who had always been nice to me, he looked like he wanted to do something couldn't do a thing. I say the both of them without taking my eyes off the guard. The grin that was on his face was disappearing fast when I did not cry out or change my expression, and as the smile disappeared anger and hatred took its place. I just stared at him, just like I had done the last time he had me tied up. I should have felt terror but I felt nothing, well not nothing I felt calm like nothing could happen to me. The guard seemed to not be able to stand that I didn't show my fear that or I didn't have any fear. He started punching me and when I fell to the ground he left off punching and started kicking. I felt every blow but in a way I didn't feel them, my wild self had taken over I know felt everything and saw everything from the back of my mind while my wild self was in the front. I still did not know what to call this creature that seemed to take me over every time I was with the guard. The guard was the most dangerous thing on the island everything that I had gone up against so far I had been able to deal with on my own, but with the guard I had no clue how to deal with him and would have died if my wild self had not come out. It did not take me long to see darkness start to creep around the edges of my sight, a little while later and it took the rest of my sight as well as my awareness of what was around me.

The first thing that came back to me was my hearing. I started to hear birds talking back and forth to each other, there was the rustle of leaves and small twigs breaking with the passing of a chipmunk or other small animal. There was nothing that I could hear that meant danger, only the normal sounds of the forest and a meadow. I then got my smell back, which brought chicken and a fire to my mind as the scents entered my nose. With that I got all of my senses back instantly. I opened my eyes to see the same meadow when the guard had cut me up. Panic started to creep upon me, and I tried to jump up to run just to find that I could not move at all. I couldn't feel either my hand or my feet. I twisted around to try and see just how I was tied, but no matter how I twisted I could not see how I was tied I just knew that I was somehow tied to the same tree I had been tied to before. After a few more tries I gave up trying to see how I was tied up and just laid still, then I made a fist with both hands. I then felt rope move on my wrists; I moved them apart but found that I could hardly move them more than a fourth of an inch. I then moved my feet and ankles to find that they were tied together just like my wrists, the only difference was that when I tried to stretch my legs out I found that they were tied to my wrists. They must be tied really tightly and cutting of my blood flow because I could not feel either my arms or my legs. What I could feel was not good; it felt like I was bruised all over my body. Every time I moved I discovered a new ache and pain, I did not know how bad I was but I knew that I had gotten a beating before I blacked out. After I was out was the mystery I did not know if the guard had stopped the beating or if he had kept going, and if so I did not know how long he kept going.

The sun was high in the sky, I had no clue how long I had been out. I could not see the camp but I knew that it was there, and probably in the same place it was last time. I was facing toward the meadow with the tree only about a few feet away; it was hard to really see how far from it I was, and with no way to see the camp. Every now and then I could smell the smoke and chicken coming from the camp, the scent was coming from the same place where the camp had been last time confirming that the guard had set up the same situation as the last time he had me here at this meadow. There was no way that I could get away, he could be anywhere just waiting for me to get lose, besides some part of me wanted to beat him at his own game, so I just closed my eyes and decided to get some rest. What was going to happen was going to happen. I just shot my eyes and waited for sleep to take me, it took awhile for my mind to stop jumping at every sound and to relax enough to fall asleep and then it was only a light sleep with me waking up at any sound that was not natural. Three times I was woken up by people walking by in the woods, none of them would come into or around the meadow they all seemed to know that the guard lived there and stayed away from him, each time I woke it took about an hour for me to settle down again.

I knew when the guard came back, I do not know how I knew that it was him and not someone else but I just knew that it was him. I heard him come from the woods and walk on past me to his camp, there he did not move around much or if he did I did not hear him. There was something about the sound of his walk that gave off a warning, it was quiet and lights like a cats while being bold like a grizzly. I knew he had something planned for me but what that was I had no clue. He left after a time and did not return until two days had passed. The sun was high in the sky but giving off little heat, I was cold there was no way I could move tied up like I was and with no fire anywhere near me I had started to shiver three hours after he left. Now two days later I was numb, I couldn't feel anything because I was so cold and to top it all off my throat had started swelling up from lack of water. I had just started wondering if that was his plan, to just leave me here to die, when he showed up. I was awake, I had not been able to really sleep for about three days now, with my eyes open just looking out over the meadow when he came walking out of the woods and headed straight toward me.

When he stopped in front of me and sat on his heels I didn't do anything, I just kept staring out at the meadow just as if he was not even there. He just stayed there for a little bit then got up and walked away to his camp. He started putting something on the fire; I could hear him but just ignored him. That is how I had dealt with things all of my life I would just cave into myself and shut everything else out, but the next thing I heard pulled me out of myself. It was the sound of water being poured into something, a second later the wind changed and I could smell the water. I never got what people meant when they would say that they could smell water but now I know what they mean. My throat seemed to get twice as dry with the scent of water being so thick in the air that I could actually taste it. I licked my lips and tried to swallow it just made me thirstier, I could hear every sound the water made. Then I heard the crack and pop of a bottle being opened, a second later I could hear the guard drinking, taking in great gulps of water. I closed my eyes and tried to close out the sounds of water, but it seemed that when I tried to shut them out there seemed to be more of them. A stream running past just behind the guards' camp and two others that went down both sides of the meadow to make a triangle with the meadow in the middle, I even started to hear streams that were coated in ice a mile away.

Each second that passed my throat became more swollen and dryer; my craving for water was the only thing on my mind. My throat felt like it was on fire, all I could hear and think about was water nothing else mattered. The wild self inside of me seemed to be having the same problem because it was gone, I could not feel if anywhere in my head while before it was always there. There was nothing I could do to get water and I was going crazy because of it, I started to pull at the ropes and it didn't take me long before I was flat out fighting them. There was only one goal in my mind and that was getting to water, as fast as I could. It never occurred to me that I was on the verge of turning into something else, all I knew was that I needed water soon or I would die. I felt the prickle of needles all over my skin as my body started to get warm from working it, I twisted and rolled jerking my hands apart until they hit the ropes that kept them together. I kicked my legs and fought like a wild out of control animal, all of my terror, anger, and confusion all came back to me and I let it all lose at one time giving one big jerk with all of the strength that I had into it. I felt something give, it was nothing big but it showed a weakness. I attacked it, pulling at the weakness keeping nothing back. It paid off the rope broke and with a few more pulls I was free, I lurched up to my feet just to have them give way and let me fall back to the ground. I tried again to get my feet underneath me, just to fall to the ground again.

I refused to give up; I could hear the stream just twenty yards past the wood line. I took in a breath of air then pushed up off the ground using the tree that I had been tied to, to get me up on my feet. I did not wait between tries and I did not wait to get my feet, instead I just let go of the tree. I felt my legs start to let loose to start to let me fall, I ground my teeth together as all of my anger just exploded. I had been desperate for water, that is what had started my struggle against the rope by then it had turned into fear that I would die and then into anger at being tied up, now thought I was just killing mad at myself at this island at the ship that had brought me here, and I was looking for a way to let lose all of the pressure that was building up inside of me. I started to scan the meadow for anything to let loose on.

My eyes fell on the guard and I froze. Fear added to my anger, as well as more anger at what he had done to me. He was the one who had taken me to the ship; he was the one that took me to the room of pain on the ship, the one who cut me up, the one who had beaten me for nothing. All of it was for nothing. With each thought more anger spilled into me and as more was added the pressure, that was too much to bear before I laid eyes on him, took over me. All I saw was red, nothing else mattered. The pain that I felt was nothing. The rope burns on my wrists and ankles meant nothing. The pain of knives on my skin from being too cold and getting warm meant nothing. The pain of my nerves coming back alive meant nothing. I had just let go of tree when I saw him, I was starting to fall as I pushed off and began to charge at him. Each step caused a ripple of pain to go up my leg into my hip and then up the rest of my body it meant nothing to me, all that mattered was the anger that was sending me toward the guard that had caused all of my pain. If anything the pain that I kept pushing away added to my anger and drove me to make this man pay for everything that he had done to me.

Everything had slowed around me what felt like hour's was only seconds. Only five seconds earlier I had been tied up and now I was only two yards away from the guard. My hands closed into tight fists I took that last few steps and then I hit him with my right fist in his gut. He started to bend over hand coming up to try to defend himself but he was moving too slow, I was too short to really punch him in the face so I settled for his body to beat up. I got five hits to his ribs before he could do anything, and when he did take a punch at me I turned my attention to his arm. I grabbed his wrist and punched the inside of his elbow, he started to bring his arm back with the first hit. With him taking away the threat I again started on his ribs. When his arm did not make the cut he turned to using his feet, he swiped my legs out from under me. I rolled and was up in half a second, I then took two steps so that I was standing beside him but looking the opposite way. Taking my foot that was closest to him I moved it forward then back so that I kicked him right behind his knee. He went down on that knee so that he looked like he was about to propose to someone, I took two step back so I was in front of him again and kicked him under his chin causing his head to jerk up and back. When his head came back up to its natural place I was ready, I hit the side of his jaw then gave him three hits to the ribs with one to the soft part just below his ribs then I hit the side of his jaw that I had not hit yet. He tried to push up with his foot that was still on the ground, he only got a few inches when I saw what he was doing and kicked the inside of his knee causing him to fall all the way to the ground. I moved with him and while he was on his side I began to kick him, I was not choosy as to where my kicks landed. He tucked himself into a ball so that I could not get at his ribs; I just went to his back and started kicking him again. I got only three kicks in, weak kicks, before I collapsed into a heap on the cold ground.

All of the anger was still there but I did not have the strength to keep going, I had not eaten anything in maybe four days maybe more. I have not had anything to drink for two to three days, and I could not remember the last time that I had slept. All of it would have been enough to bring me down but my anger had given me an advantage so it had taken more a lot more before I had collapsed. Fighting my way out of the ropes and then fighting or rather beating up the guard had taken everything out of me. I looked at the sky as I began to slip into darkness, I had just a second to hate myself for wanting to kill someone even of that person had hurt me gave me no right to kill them. As I slipped into the darkness that waited for me I let go of the monster that I had become shoving it into a corner of my mind and locked that part of my life away then I buried it deep, as deep as I could. I did not want to remember the anger and hate and the power, it had been so easy to beat him up he had had no chance against me it had been like he was in slow motion while I was going the speed of light. What was I? Was I a monster? It scared me to think about what I could do, it scared me even more that I had liked the power. So I buried it as deep as I could then I erased my mind of having ever got out of the ropes in the first place. Only then did I let the darkness take over to take me away from this nightmare.


	8. Dancing with the Devil

I woke up to pain, my whole body was screaming at me. My breath caught in my throat before come out in short bursts. I moved my one hand to cup the other just to awake more pain; I opened my eyes to see a fire just a yard or so away. Something behind the fire caught my attention and I looked up to meet the eyes of the guard. I froze at the sight of him when a thought came to me, the last time that I knew I had been hogtied and now I was free or seemed to be. It made no sense to me that he would just let me go after paying for me. I looked down, missing the fear in his eyes, knowing that he could do anything he wants to me and I wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it, he was trained and I wasn't. The sight of my hand confused me, my wrists had caked blood on them while my knuckles were all scraped and around them was all black and blue. I could feel my nerves coming awake and while it was painful I was grateful that they still worked. The warmth of the fire was wrapping me in a warm blanket; it felt after days of nothing but cold. I felt my eyes start to get heavy with sleep; it had been so long since I had really had any sleep that I began to give in without a fight. I was almost asleep, just on that ledge not quite asleep but not awake either, when I heard water hitting the side of a container. I came wide awake when that sound hit my ears. I opened my eyes and began to look around to find out where that sound came from, just to find that the guard held a water bottle that had been opened and half of the water was gone letting him able to shake it up and make the sound of water. I licked my upper lip knowing that I needed the water but unsure if the guard would let me had any.

I lifted myself up so that I was sitting instead of lying on the ground, with the sound of water so close I would not be able to sleep even if I had tried. I glanced at him then looked around; the camp was small and simple with only the fire and a tent. It was put just inside the wood line out of view of the meadow, but from here I would be able to see anyone coming into the meadow. It was the perfect hunting spot hidden but in a place where attack would be good. I looked out in the meadow the winter giving to a beauty that I would never be able to place anywhere else. It was dangerous but friendly at the same time. The song "Dance with the Devil" came to my mind.

_Here I stand, helpless and left for dead._

_Close your eyes, so many days go by._

_Easy to find what's wrong, harder to find what's right. _

_I believe in you, I can show you that I can see right through all your empty lies._

_I won't stay long, in this world so wrong. _

_Say goodbye, as we dance with the devil tonight._

_Don't you dare look him in the eye, as we dance with the devil tonight? _

_Trembling, crawling across my skin._

_Feeling your cold dead eyes, stealing the life from mine. _

_I believe in you, I can show you that I can see right through all your empty lies._

_I won't last long, in this world so wrong._

_Say goodbye, as we dance with the devil tonight._

_Don't you dare look him in the eye, as we dance with the devil tonight?_

_Hold on, Hold on. _

_Say goodbye, as we dance with the devil tonight._

_Don't you dare look him in the eye, as we dance with the devil tonight?_

_Hold on, Hold on. _

_Whhhhhhhhoooooo, ooooooooo._

_Goodbye. _

I sang it three times in my head, for some reason after I had hurt my throat I have never been able to talk. I would try but I could never get the word off of my tong. The spell the meadow had on me was broken by the sound of water sloshing around; I turned my head to see where the sound had come from. The guard was standing behind the fire and was watching me, a look around showed that he had tossed the water bottle over the fire and it had landed a few yards away from me. It was all I needed from him, he would let me drink but he was going to make me work for it. I stood up and hurried toward the bottle just to be jerked back, when I was yard away from, by neck. Something had grabbed my around my neck cutting off my air and giving me a good jerk and causing me to fall backward, I grabbed my neck with both hands as I sat up from my fall. I found a rope tied around my neck I pulled at it trying work it loose so that I could breath; it was pulled so tight that it was choking me. I couldn't breathe! I tried to get air into my lungs but no matter what I did I just could not seem to get it loose. I started to see the darkness start to creep around the edges of my sight, and then I could see the darkness. It was one big pit with a slide going down to it and no matter what I did I kept sliding down to that pit, I knew that if I went into that pit there was no coming back ever. I scrambled to get a foothold a handhold anything that would keep me from the pit. I had stood up trying to get away from the rope but now I slipped down to my knees and then sat down as the minutes passed bring me ever closer to the pit of death. I slid down so that I was sitting giving a final pull at the rope around my neck; I was just a foot away from the pit. I slid down even more my back hitting the ground my arms falling away from my neck my eyes sliding closed as I fell over the ledge of the pit. I never felt the rope become loose or felt clean fresh air fill my lungs.

I was woken up by a sharp pain in my side. I opened my eyes to find the guard standing over me. He then kicked me in my side causing the pain to double; he then walked to a tree that had a rope tied to it.

"Get up." That was all he said before untying the rope and then giving it a jerk. At the same time as he jerked on the rope I felt a jerk on my neck that pulled me toward the guard, and pain exploded all around my neck. It was a dull pain and sharp mixed together letting me know that my neck was not fully healed from being jerked by the rope the first time and that this time had added more damage to it. I stumbled to my feet coughing because the rope had shut my windpipe cutting off my air supply and then opened again, it was an automatic. As soon as I was standing the guard started to walk away, he still had the rope so I followed him. At first I stayed well away from him as far away as the rope would let me, but after being choked by the rope getting caught in low branches and in brush I began to walk right behind him. After three hours of hiking the guard stopped and tied me to a tree then left, it had felt good moving around again and I wanted to keep moving but was not about to argue with the man who had almost killed me just the other day. The sun had been going down before he had choked me and now it was heading up, so my best bet would be that I was out for the rest of that day and that night then woken up with a kick to my ribs, with was and had been aching all through the hike and were probably bruised.

I watched as the guard made his way away from me, just to stop about five yards away. I then noticed a meadow a yard or so in front of him. The meadow or what I could see of it had tall standing hay; it was the perfect place for deer and other animals to graze. I started to wonder what the guard was doing here when I saw a group of deer walking out of the woods like they had nothing to worry about. I stayed still not wanting to scare them away, I loved watching them they were all so graceful and perfect. The deer added the final element that made this meadow just right. They had just started to graze when a loud bang exploded the peace and quiet into a million pieces. All of the deer took off running, all but one that at the same time the bang was heard the doe jumped sideways and then fell. I watched in horror as the others disappeared back into the safety of the forest while the doe struggled to get to her feet. She almost made it but fell back to the ice cold ground at the last second. There she lay, I could see her side moving up and down with her breathing but I knew it was only a matter of time before she would be dead there was nothing that I could do for her.

My ears were ringing from the guards' gun going off so close to me. I could see him; he got up and turned toward me. There was a pleased look about him, the way he walked and moved told how proud he was of himself for bring down the graceful doe. He came and untied me then lead me over to where the doe was laying, still breathing she gave a half halfhearted try at getting away from the man who had caused her pain and would take her life. He grabbed my arm and pulled me next to him the shoved a knife into my hands.

"Cut its throat." I shook my head and letting the knife drop to the ground I backed away from him shaking my head no. He jerked on the rope causing me to take a few stumbling step toward him. "I said cut its throat." He growled at me shoving the knife into my hand again. I began to shake my head when he slapped my. I could see the anger in his eyes as he gave me the knife; I just let the knife drop to the ground. As much as I was scared of the guard I just could not bring myself to kill a deer. I hit the ground get two seconds after the knife, the guard had punched me. He pulled me up to my feet by my hair, that had come loose from my braids and was now just hanging free, and started to punch me. There was no stopping him once he got started, and when he stopped I was just barely conscious my face pulsing with pain and my body throbbing with waves that seemed to come and go as they pleased. The guard then dragged me over to the doe's head and pressed the knife into my hand. "Cut its throat before I cut yours." Tears began to run down my face as I put one hand down on the doe's head to keep her still then with the other I drew the knife across her throat right where I could see her pulse throbbing. I then cried silently as she died, the light slowly leaving her eyes as her life drained out of her. I did this; I was the one who had killed her. In the moment I hated myself for what I was becoming. "Once you let the darkness in, there is no getting it out." The thought popped into my head, I had heard it somewhere I'm not sure where but somewhere, and at that moment that the doe took her last breath something died inside of me. I had become a killer, it did not matter that I had just killed a deer and not a human but to me a person and an animal is all the same. I had just become a little colder a little more uncaring a little more about surviving and doing anything to make sure that I survived this island.

"Skin it cut the meat into strips." The guard said before turning and walking toward the woods. "If you're not here when I get back I'll find you and kill you after I drag you through hell and back." He didn't even turn around to threaten me he just kept on walking. I had never skinned anything before or cut meat up into pieces that could be turned into jerky, I was sure that was what he wanted. For a few minutes I just looked at the deer, and then I wiped my eyes and set to work. I started from the cut on its throat, making it longer before I began to carefully cut the skin from the meat. I had gotten down to the deer's shoulder when the guard came back and started to make a fire just inside the tree line like his other camp, the only difference is that he had not brought his tent along with him. It took me two hours before I had the hide off and started on cutting the meat into strips to be put over the fire. It was dark by the time I was done, I was just thinking about slipping away in the growing darkness when the guard brought me over to the fire gave me some water and then tied me to a tree. I could just reach the warmth of the fire and after working in the cold I was grateful for it. When full darkness claimed the island the guard hogtied me then crawled up in his sleeping bag. With nothing else to do I closed my eyes but for the life of me could not get to sleep, the sky was starting to lighten up when sleep finally clamped me.

I was woken up to being kicked again, this time the guard did not stop kicking me until I could not breathe. He stops only to pull me around to the other side of the fire and handed me the hide of the deer along with a scraper.

"Work it." He growled before tying me up to a nearby tree. He kept the rope long enough to reach the hide that was stacked to the ground but no farther than that, the hide was just inside the range of the heat from the fire. I took the scraper and began to pull it across the hide. After half an hour of working on the hide I posed to give my muscles a rest, my whole body was sore and achy after getting beating after beating. The guard was away doing something maybe getting more wood for the fire. I jumped when someone grabbed my hair and lifted me to my feet; I ignored the pain not really caring about it. "I told you to work it not sit by it!" He snarled into my face. The guard had come back and he seemed really pissed that I was not working. He stared at me for a second then he slapped my face making my head roll to one side. He then slapped the other side of my face, and I did nothing as he kept on slapping me. The pain meant nothing for me, I did not know why I even bothered trying to survive I was never going to make it off this island. I did not know how or when but the guard had moved to hitting my body while holding me up by one of my arms. I could feel each hit just like I could feel blood running down my face, after a time he let go of my arm and began to kick me first my stomach and ribs then when I curled up into a ball he kicked my back.

Minutes might have past or hours I do not know nor did I care, before he stopped and then it was just to lift me up so that I was standing by my hair. He then took his foot and slammed the bottom of his boot right behind my knee. My knee came loose and I would have fallen but the guard still had my hair, it gave me the time to get my foot back underneath me. Even though my knee was exploding with pain every inch I moved it I still forced it to hold me up. This just made the guard more pissed off at me; he started hitting me again this time holding nothing back. It was not long before darkness came to take me away, away from this hell hole, away from this life for just a little bit a little bit of not having to live not having to keep trying to survive.

Ice cold water had me gasping for air and shivering in the sudden cold that surrounds me like a ice blanket. I was jerked away from the black safe haven that I was starting to see as being better than trying to keep living. Water began to crawl down under my suit and then freezing to my skin, the guard shoved the scraper into my hand.

"Get to work." He said in his usual growl before he went back to his spot by the fire. I worked the rest of that day and the next few days on the hide. Each morning I was woken up with a beating and each night I would be roughly hog tied. I was never really warm but I was never really cold ether the guard kept me just away from shivering but never any warmer, ever two days or so he would give me water just enough to keep me alive I could not remember what food even looked like it has been so long since I had eaten anything. Each day he would find something that would get me beaten, he liked beating me up sometimes I would get beaten twice in a day and sometimes I would get one or two during the night.

Days passed, there was always work to be done. Once all of the meat and hide of the deer was done he would then take me hunting and I would have to kill the animal that he had downed and skin it then take the meat. I would then have to pack the hide and all of the meat back to camp, it was not long before he had me putting the meat over the fire and working the hide. As weeks passed he began to go hunting and would just bring the animal back to camp for me to butcher, I would then have to get rid of all the insides and the bones that were left after I took all of the meat off whatever he had brought back with him, mostly deer sometimes hogs and lots of small animals like chipmunks and squirrels, I put them all in a hole that I dug using a sharp stick. Each time the guard left he would threaten me and each time he got back he would find something wrong and give me a beating. By the time summer started coming around I was used to taking hits, I still did not see what there was to live for but each hit it took something inside of me became more set like it was waiting for just the right moment to make its more. It scared me, what was this thing inside of me that welcomed each hit that went looking for trouble. As the days had past I had been done little stupid things just to get the guard mad, like dropping some meat into the fire making a hole in a hide, it was like I had no control over myself in those seconds like something else reached out and made me do it.

As the weather heated up I began to get a little worried about my suit, all I had under it was a tank and shorts. It was not my main concern, I really did not care one way or the other, but I was shy and did not really want the guard to see my in just a tank and shorts. I was just thinking about ditching my suit when the guard hogtied me in the middle of the day and left. I was so used to being tied up that I just laid there and closed my eyes, sleep did not come I was used to only getting about four hours of sleep and working the other twenty hours on hides or cutting up some animal. The good thing about the guard hunting alone meant that I did not have to kill the animals he took down but by now it did not bother me that I was taking a life. I just laid there not thinking about anything this was the longest time that I had caved in on myself ever since that pack had laid their hands on me I had hidden myself away trying to get away in a way. The day past and night took over, it was getting hotter but a lot of me had died over the time the guard had had me, now I did not know if I could survive this or if I even wanted to.

The next day it was hot, like cooking pancakes on a rock in the shade hot, and I was still tied up and in my suit. I could not think about anything for long, breathing was hard. I had stopped sweating a while ago, I needed water soon or I would die. I had been alone for only twenty-nine hours, but if the guard or someone did not come soon that I would die from the heat. But would that be a bad this to just let myself die, I would be over with the pain over with taking this abuse but then I would not be able to get home. My mind turned toward home I had no friends; I had changed so much that my family would never recognize me. No one would miss me there was nobody waiting for me to find my way home, even if I did make it home I was too messed up. If I died here they would remember me as I used to be not this broken down kid that would rather kill herself then keep going. For some reason that I could not name I kept looking for something that would keep me going but there was nothing to live for. The guard would probably be happy that I died like this helpless and terrified, even though I was not terrified, but that would mean that the guard won. It would mean that he would have been the one to end me to make me take the fall. With that thought I found something to live for, I would survive I would be one of the ten to make it out of here and he won't be able to stop me. With the will to keep living I settled down to wait for the guard to come back, and when he did I would get away somehow someway I would escape and win this war.

The guard came back four hours later, dragging someone else behind him. I was out of it more than half dead covered in dry sweat, my mind was shutting down my eyes would not open and when they did I could not see anything but black. When the guard kicked me to wake me up I felt it but it was nothing compared to the pain that I was feeling. The suit had turned into a branding iron that kept burning my skin, I was laying on my right side and the worst of the burns was on my right shoulder and hip as well as the outside of my leg the rest of me was also burned but not to such a degree. When I did not respond to him he untied me and poured ice over me, he got nothing from me. The water helped cool me off a little but really did not do anything. The guard then touched my suit to pull me up only to jump back when it burned him. For some reason I could tell what was going on around me, it was like I was watching what was going on from outside of my body. I could see the girl at the end of a rope trying to get away, I could see the grass and the trees swaying in the wind. I could even see the boy who had been so good to me on the life raft just a few feet away hidden by a tree watching as the guard tied the girl to a tree then took another rope and slipped in around my legs. I could see the rope start to become black with smoke curling away it would not take long before it would start burning. I watched as the boy took a step forward then step back unsure what to do but wanting to do something to stop the guard, I could read him so easily. When had I gotten good at reading people?

I watched as the guard began to drag me away from his camp and into the wood. I followed and so did the boy, he looked good. He was not underweight or anything, he had a tan and his hair was long and wild but it was not like there was a barber shop around to get your hair cut. He was not that good at being in the woods, he kept on tripping over things and making a lot of noise. He was lucky that the guard had his attention on dragging me otherwise he would have been caught. It did not take the guard long to get where he was going, which turned out to be a cliff with a river going by. The boy was leaning against a tree trying to catch his breath when the guard took the rope off of me and then using a large stick he rolled me over the side of the cliff. I watched myself fall toward the river. Then I could hear, I could hear the wind whistling past my body, I could here the boys whispered "no" as he watched helplessly. Then I hit the water and I could feel again, I could feel the ice cold water cool my suit and sooth my burns. The river did not wait around it took me with it, taking me away from the guard and hopefully away from all of the darkness and killing.

I fought my way to the surface of the river, but like everything else it fought back trying to keep me away from the air and trying to take my life away. I fought harder I would not let myself die here. I would beat this island I would make it scared of me, I would become something more then I was now. Something that would hit harder faster then anything this island had to throw at me. I reached the surface and taking a deep breath I went back under, I would start now. I swam with the current trying different thing to see what I could really do in the water. I stayed under until I started see black spots and then I went up to the surface to take a quick breath of air before diving under again. I had never learned how to swim but now I forced myself to learn all of the secrets that the river was trying to keep. After swimming for five hours strait the river began to widen, and I was able to swim, really swim. I could go against the current or go with it, it took some effort but I could do it. I made my way to the surface to see where I was and what I saw almost had me laughing. It was fitting in a way, the river that the guard had dropped me into had brought me to the same lake that the ocean had brought me to. I was back home with my den not too far away. This is were I had started to learn how to live on my own and it was the place that I would teach myself how to survive.

I swam to the shore where I had waken up when I had first came to the island. As soon as the water came to shallow to swim in anymore I got to my feet and headed for my den, as soon as I got there I took my suit off taking off some skin as well in the process. I felt the pain like I felt the pain of every muscle that I had worked almost too hard, my body was almost collapsing from exhaustion but I did not really care. If I did not get in shape soon I would die and that was not going to happen. I put the suit in one of the boxes in the wall of the back room in my den then I took off looking for different plants that I would need. I found then easily, thanks to the fairy's training, and took them to a sheltered spot near a stream. I started a fire using two stones that were found close by, and taking leaves that I picked from the near by trees I began to make cups. Taking the leaves I overlapped them using a kind of tree sap that would act like glue, once I had them in the shape that I wanted them in I dipped the outside of the leaves into the stream. The the tree sap hardened when it hit the water making a cup that I could cook with, it was small but I did not need a whole pot of tea just a cup of it. I then up water into the first cup then set it by the fire to get hot, because the leaves were green they would not burn and I could keep using this cup for a month if need be. With water on I started making a second cup the same way. I then put two handfuls of a tree sap that the fairy's call ice sap, I added just a little bit of water to the sap then put it beside the fire. With that done I turned to find a flat rock, I found one that was flat with a hollow in the middle that would be perfect for what I wanted it for. Three seconds later I found a round rock that I could hold in my hand, with everything I need I started to get to work. Taking a mix of herbs I began to crush them using the hollow in the flat rock and the hand held one, once they were crushed into a sort of powder I checked on the water to see if it was hot, it was, the sap needed some more time so I left it where it was. I took the water and added the crushed herbs into mixing them into the water with a twig.

I then set it by the fire but a little ways away, just near enough to keep it warm without having it cook. I then took the sap away from the fire, it had started to melt, I added some flower pollen to the sap and mixed it up then put it back in its place by the fire to cook some more. It would help my burns heal faster, while the tea would also help me heal it would help me become stronger faster help me heal more quickly. I took a sip of the tea after stirring it. Most of the herbs here in this island were like magic, all of them did something like healing burns or just plan making you heal faster, like take half the time healing, for like five months after you take it, I was told that sometime it only lasted a week and other times it lasted six months it all depended on the person or fairy. The fairy's had taught me a lot, but they were still teaching me when I was taken away. I took the sap off the fire and dipped the outside of the cup into the river cooling it off but not too much that the sap would harden. Once it was cool enough I picked a leaf and using it like a paint brush I put the sap, which had turned into a kind of thick oil, onto all of my burns that I could reach. The oil socked into my skin almost in the same moment that I put it on.

As soon as I was done I made a lid with a leaf that was tied onto the top of the cup with little strong vines, that I had found growing up a tree. I would keep the burn-oil-sap for latter use if I needed or I could use it for something else. I drank the rest of the tea the put the fire out, I then hid all of the sign of my being here. I headed back to my den taking both cups with me there I grabbed my suit and wiped out all of my foot prints so that it looked like nobody had been here for over a year. I walked away from my den my first home here on this island and headed inland to start my training.


End file.
